Day 314: Laundry Walled and Boxed

We've been at a strange point the past few weeks with the bathroom building. There's a nice long to-do list, as you'll recall, but no obvious single thing that we need to be focusing on. For a while, there was a critical path of sequential steps that was quite clear: plumb drain pipes to build shower to tile... I guess it's nice to now have a few tasks that need completing because if we get bored/stuck with one, there are other things we can turn to. So since we finished drywalling the sink and back walls, we've had a bit of progress on building the cabinet. Then we realized that it'll be much easier to fight work with the laundry machines if we've got lots of open space and room... as in no sink cabinet jutting 25" into the room. And work we did!

This is the blank slate we started with on Friday.

Laundry side waiting for drywall and a shiny new box.

The first task on hand was to build a laundry box, sometimes called a washing machine outlet box. When the plumbing was done back in June, we picked up one of these guys in the store.

That $25 hunk of plastic was not so impressive. More importantly, it wouldn't work for us because our supply lines come down from the ceiling but all of these boxes are built for supply lines coming up. With lots of scrap plywood lying around, what option is there other than building one ourselves?

You can see above we would need a giant box to fit around the drain pipe and taps as they were placed, not lining up horizontally. So to start, we cut out a rectangle of foam, cut down the drain pipe and moved up the valves. This third step involved shutting off the water, cutting the pipe, pulling out the torch, attempting to separate the copper elbows to reuse them, failing, buying new elbows, bending up a piece of scrap sheet metal to protect the box and foam from the flame, and fluxing and soldering away. We actually put in the beautiful box that Garrett built before soldering on the elbow so we could get away with cutting little holes top just big enough for the pipe to slide through. Thank you, hole saws, for your never-ending usefulness.* And here's the finished product:

Custom laundry outlet box

An extra little piece was added for the valves to screw into to give the pipes extra support. The soldered joint is hidden in the plywood and there's plenty of room behind the valves for your knuckles to turn comfortably. The box is also built to stick out 1/2" from the stud so that the edge of the plywood lines up with the drywall. Someone was clearly thinking.

I said that was the first task but, in fact, we bounced between that box, the laundry platform, and drywall over the weekend. You've seen the panel-fronted platform that I built back in April and had promised to describe. I was pretty pleased as it was the first thing I had built by myself (with suggestions from Garrett). Alas, it was made as a temporary solution with scrap 2x4s and was not the sturdiest thing on the block.

DIY laundry platform 1.0

Enter the new kid on the block:

DIY laundry platform 2.0

Isn't it beautiful? It's all 3/4" plywood. One panel each on the back, top, bottom and sides and two down the middle. (One half of the bottom is actually a piece of plywood we found in a pile of free pallets in front of a furniture manufacturer nearby.) This new kid on the block is quite the looker, especially once the walls behind it are drywalled.

Poor old kid kicked off the block

Shiny new kid on the block

There will be another sheet of plywood added to each side that will extend up the whole height of the machines. On the right, we'll be putting in a slim laundry cupboard for the drying rack and ironing board. On the left, I'm excited about the idea of a little panel that swings open to provide access to the valves.

Side access to valves

Laundry cupboard in waiting

Our very, very, very crooked floors made it a real pain to level this thing as the screwed it into the wall and floor. We weren't too concerned about the lining up the bottom with the tile as we'll be adding a frame around the face for drawers. Speaking of lining up, I'll share a final thought on a lesson learned for the future. Something I've been bothered with is the height of the outlets, which are and have always been where the electrician put them in - probably a comfortable height to plug in laundry machines sitting on the floor.

It's the details - like outlet height - that count

With the rush to get our insulation in, we didn't even consider whether we'd want to change the height before they got essentially locked in place with spray foam. It's not too bad since you can plug in the dryer from the side, push it in place, then do the same with the washer. In fact, had we moved them up above the height of the machines on a platform, they might be even harder to plug into behind a panel hiding the duct. The point is that this minor detail showed us the importance of thinking ahead on these types of projects. It's a reminder that it helps to think about what kind of finished product we want and figure out how each step in the process can affect the details of that end product.

So that's a few steps taken off our to-do list on the way to a finished bathroom, hopefully with lots of details we'll be more than happy with:

• Fix return duct in ceiling
• Build soffit around gas and water lines
• Create washer box in wall for laundry supply/drain
• Drywall behind laundry machines
• Mud and tape walls
• Build cabinets
• Install countertop, sink and faucet
• Rebuild laundry platform
• Build laundry cupboard
• Grout shower floor and ceiling
• Shower door
• Paint walls and cabinets
• Install beadboard and chair rail
• Install toilet
• Install light fixtures
• Build and hang mirror
• Build/get/install door and jamb
• Install ceiling

* Hole saws featured prominently at the Build Your Own Rain Barrel workshop I helped with this weekend. This workshop, along with a stormwater evaluation we had on Saturday, got the brain juices flowing with ideas for our rainwater harvesting plans. Once the report comes through, we'll have a post or two all about stormwater management on our property.