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Need paint advice for laundry/furnace room

16 years ago

My laundry room shares the space with my furnace and water heater. We've done a few additions to our home and everytime piping was needed, they ran the piping along the ceiling and not inside any walls. As a result, I have more pipes than I know what to do with and they cannot be boxed in. I need to live with them. The water pipes are there too. About 6 years ago, my painter at the time, painted regular latex over all these ugly pipes. Now it is peeling and looks worse. I am updating the room with a new laundry sink, cabinet, and utility cabinet. Also plan to put new flooring down which can handle the furnace guys when they have to work on the equipment.

I can't box in the furnace because there is not enough air circulation in the room.

I am going to paint the room (it is half cinder block and half sheetrock. The cabinets will be white. My appliances are white. I am picking out a laminate top for the white laundry sink. Does anyone have any suggestions on what to do with the piping along the ceiling? Also, what color to paint the room? Most of the paint colors in my home are in the Bleeker Beige family.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

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Comments (5)

Faron79
16 years ago
Sankaty,

Do you ya have room to put in a "drop-ceiling" using the grid-channels & ceiling tiles??
* Our Laundry is this way, and we only lost ~5" of space.
* If need be, I could take out all the tiles and have pretty easy access to all pipes/wires.
* We have lots of wires/pipes above these tiles.
* We could've sheetrocked the ceiling, but in a utility area, access sometimes takes precedence!

Our Laundry:

Faron
sankaty_91
Original Author
16 years ago
Thanks for your response, Faron. What a fabulous idea! I'm not sure that your incredible solution would work for me. We have a very strict building code and it would make the room height under code. We are expecting to sell our home in 3-5 years (we've been here 31) and we would not be able to pass it through the building dept. with a lowered ceiling. I am going to take some measurements and show your picture to my carpenter.
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Rachel, My kitchen is/was an identical layout as yours, just flip it over. I love seeing yours and how we can work with our small areas. Also love the colors and keeping with your home's history. The laundry area is open to my kitchen, I suspect they removed the wall you have. They left a half wall where your furnace is and added a wall/door facing the outside door. This left the laundry open to kitchen. The furnace area is a fairly large space/room, but I was able to install the water softener in there and also use it for storing brooms, ironing board, etc. My door to the living room is on the opposite wall as yours so there are cabinets/counter up to this door forming an L shaped kitchen. Ceiling heigth cabinets were built on the kitchen/furnace room wall which took away any eating area. I removed them, big wasted space and now have a dining area there. With all, I still had the same dilemma as you with the water heater. Mine is right in the open and next to the WD. This couldn't be enlcosed with the furnace as it would not have allowed enough walking area between cabinets/counter which were built to the outside door. If these were not new and/or take a lot of work to change, I'd put the wall back up to close off the laundry area....have my days when a laundry in kitchen view isn't my thing. With the WH sitting right next to my washer/dryer, I used one of the ceiling height cabinets taken from kitchen to enclose it (surprising, it fit perfectly). The back is open for circulation, doors can be open for access and it can be moved if needed. The other cabinet fit perfectly beside the opposite side of W/D. Pure luck...still have the storage. I can't tell how much room you have between the washer and furnace. But you could enclose all of this with folding shutter doors...keep the air circulation needed...from wall to wall across the laundry, which would give you a large hidden storage area. They now have full ceiling height shutters/doors availabe at HD and are inexpensive. Since the furnace filter area can't be covered, it looks like there isn't enough room, one of the doors could be added from ceiling/wall down to the filter. At least all the duct work and plumbing would be hidden and you can still get to everything if needed. Hopefully this doesn't sound like rambling....it is pure creative tasks in making our small homes look/feel right.
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Faron79
16 years ago
Thanks Sankaty!
However...this IS a pretty common way to deal with "messy-yet-need-to-keep-accessible" rooms!

* What is the measurement from your floor to the bottom of the ceiling-joists?
* Would losing a few inches hit any door-swing arcs?
* Our lower-level (bi-level home) is a full 8' wall, so losing 4-5" was hardly noticeable.
* I also installed 2 flourescent light troffer-bays instead of panels. I wanted lotsa light in there! The room is about 10' x 11'.
* I also studded-out a wall in front of the sump-pit/water-heater/furnace space, and installed bi-fold doors. Stained-'em to match rest of the trim, & applied 3 coats of ACE's Satin Oil-base Polyurethane.
* I'll get a pic here soon...

Faron
Faron79
16 years ago
More "Laundry" pics!!...
This one starts at the cupboard, and going to the right:

Moving to the right...

My bi-fold doors in front of furnace, etc.

Vertical shot of my little "ironing-closet", and the rooms' entry. I took off the door for the fold-down Ironing-board/sleeve-table...would've obscured pic.

Thus concludes the THRILLING Laundry-room tour, with its dropped ceiling!

Faron
sankaty_91
Original Author
16 years ago
Thanks so much for the pictures. I wish everyone on this forum could see what you have done. Incredible! I have measured the lowest pipe - and ceiling to floor is only 72" and a drop ceiling would interfere with the door swing. Some of these pipes run into my furnace which has 7 zones so you can see how many pipes come out. I LOVE the idea of the drop ceiling so much that I am now thinking of what to do in my basement which was to be my next project. I think the pipes I am dealing with now need to be painted somehow. The room is 11 X 4 so there isn't much flexibity there.

Thanks again for the unbelievable suggestion.

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