I Did It Myself

PROJECT: Utility room makeover TIME: One week COST: $150 HOW SHE DID IT: Betty Ann Spiers never imagined that a furnace chimney fire in her Henrico County home would turn out to be a blessing in disguise.

"Although I had to clean up the soot from every surface in the utility room, I was jolted into the awareness that this room had not been cleaned in 40 years," Spiers said.

The room housed an oil furnace, washer and dryer and an old, rust-covered chest freezer. "The freezer has been wonderful to have, but now that our family is grown, we really don't need it, and I do need the space for storage," she said. "So out it went, along with a wooden cabinet, metal shelves and a collection of miscellaneous items."

She repainted with an oil-based alkyd paint, then used semi-gloss latex to add yellow and blue stripes on three walls. She painted one wall solid blue and the ceiling yellow to ramp up the style.

"My next job is to retile the floor and refinish the paint-streaked woodwork," she said.

Although the room is a pass-through from the outside to the family room, it now presents a much more inviting face and will be easier to clean, she said.

The men in her family think it's "much too loud, but I don't see them doing the laundry in there. I had cut out a magazine article with the stripe idea more than 20 years ago. I decided to suit myself, and I'm happy with it. I'm very happy to have 'done it myself' and spent very little money." -- Julie Young

TELL US HOW YOU DID IT: Share your home or garden project in 250 words or fewer with Julie Young, Home & Garden, I Did It Myself, P.O. Box 85333, Richmond, VA 23293, or e-mail . Include your name, address, phone number and, if possible, high-resolution photos of yourself and your project. The project must be one you did yourself.