Blinded

Our new washer and dryer are heavenly. Sometimes I walk in and Mike is sitting on the floor, watching the clothes go round and round. I’ve memorized the little tunes they sing when the cycle ends. Despite all the hassle we went through to get them, our new appliance babies are totally worth it.

But every time we turned the corner of the kitchen we were faced with this:

When we had the new washer and dryer installed the bi-fold doors wouldn’t close. After several extremely, extremely frustrating attempts to remedy the problem, we took the doors off entirely and the machines have been living out in the open.

We store things above the washer and dryer (like laundry soap, tools, the roomba supplies) so leaving the space open was not an option. After we took a step back and looked at what we were working with, we decided to install a new shelf and cover the top portion of the closet with a rolling shade. Sounds easy, right? Is it ever easy when the Possanza’s are renovating?

One Saturday we headed to Lowe’s--Mike made sure we measured this time so we didn’t have any more space issues. We knew we didn't want to spend a fortune but wanted to avoid anything cheap-looking. Of course, Lowe’s didn’t have the shelf size we needed and blinds were outrageously priced. So we went to Home Depot. They had the size shelf we needed but it was only 4 inches deep. Back to Lowe’s. We paced the aisles and I started to LOSE IT. I admit that I completely lost my crap and was cursing our house—why was everything so hard? Why couldn’t something just go as planned?

I calmed down and we found a shelf that worked, nice brackets, plus a set of rolling blinds on the cheap. When we went to install the shelf we had a pretty difficult time measuring since we don’t have a level and we were trying to work around the already installed machines. Mike’s arms can only stretch so far and I was afraid of denting the machines if I perched atop them. When we finally got the measurements right Mike went to drill and hit a stud in the wall. It never ends.

Eventually, it all got assembled:

I love it! Yes, it would be nice if there were doors, but we realized that wasn’t possible and moved past it. And we saved the existing set for when it comes time to move, so no loss. I’m happy we were able to find a solution that works for us and wasn’t overly pricey. And I’m happy to be done with this whole dilemma...until something else pops up, which you know it will!