Laundry Room Cabinet Renovation

Updated on June 4, 2024

I am making more progress in Project Organize. I created a DIY knife drawer block that allowed me to combine all my knives to one drawer.

One of my laundry room cabinets was the next project I tackled. Sadly, it has been on my to do list since we moved in eight years ago. It was not a high priority since it was in the laundry room and nobody looks at it but me. I have mentioned before that the old homeowners of our house liked to cut corners. They did some renovations, but many of them were done incorrectly or only halfway. Apparently the cabinet was just one big space, so they added a shelf. It was done with really rough plywood and never fully attached and finished.

Over time, however, I had some spills from laundry detergent in the cabinet on the bottom and it became completely warped, and whether it looked pretty or not, I really needed to fix it.

I started by sanding down the warped part as smooth as I could. I used wood filler to smooth it all out. I sanded it down again, added more wood filler and let it dry again. Then, I sanded some more. (I thought I had pictures of this process but I can’t find them anywhere on my computer.)

Now, the cabinet needed to be repainted, I figured I would finish off the shelf to make it look nice as well. I started by sanding down the wooden shelf. I screwed the shelf into the supports. I added caulk around the edges.

In the above picture you can see the patch job I did on the bottom of the cabinet in the back. And all of the caulk around the edges of the shelf.

Next, I painted the cabinet. I really should have primed everything first. The inside of the cabinet was a shiny surface and the wood was really porous. It ended up taking me almost 4 coats to smooth everything out. I used Behr Semi-Gloss paint.

via Instagram

Once the paint was all dry, the cabinet looked finished, finally!

To prevent any further mishaps from spills, I added a removable shelf liner to the bottom shelf.

And I was finally able to put everything back into the cabinet that had been sitting on the dryer and the floor for weeks. (Yes, I totally procrastinated after finishing the wood filler to the time I actually painted.)

After everything was up off the floor, I also went ahead a reorganized the other two cabinets and did some rearranging and purging. It feels good to go into my laundry room and not trip all over items on the floor!

Have you ever lived in a house where the previous homeowner cut corners?