Time to do some more demolition.  This time, it’s the laundry nook.  Here is what  it looked like with the washer and dryer removed.

Here it goes.  Destruction is so much fun.

This is good anger management.

Down with the wall.

Once we got to this point, we had a crazy idea.  With the walls down, the basement felt so nice and open.  All of the sudden both Kathryn and I had visions of an awesome family room here instead of in the adjacent bedroom!  We could forgo the bathroom in this room, leave all the walls down, and have a nice open room where we could put the couch, tv, and the computer.  Basically, this would become our replacement upstairs bonus room.  Anyway, it’s fun idea to think about.

We pondered on it for a little while, and had a plumber come and give us a quote on what it would take to add another bathroom into the laundry room.  It all seemed doable, so we decided to go for it.  This is the new plan we drew up.

And the old one to compare against.

Supplies!  We’re starting to look like hoarders in our garage as we’re stockpiling supplies.  So far, most everything has been ripping out stuff and taking loads to the dump, but there has been quite a bit of new stuff gathering as well.  We really pushed Darbus to the limit with this load.  The trunk was also pretty full with the toilet and other things from this run.

We’re trying to be responsible citizens by installing a backflow preventer  on the line that feeds the sprinklers.

Unfortunately, by adding the bathroom over into the laundry room, we had to do some rework.  One of the major jobs was to add in another vent duct for the bathroom fan.  In order to do this, we had to pull out and redo parts of the dryer vent as well.

We’ve got the second hole cut on the old coal chute door.

We needed to notch one of the floor joist braces in order to run the new duct line.  Kevin was amazing and volunteered to crawl in the old coal chute and do the job.

Here they are, ready to be pushed in and hopefully never opened up again.

Here is what it looks like on the inside.  In order to make room for the bathroom, we needed move around the washer and dryer hookups.  The dryer vent is now one stud bay to the left of original.  The washing machine drain will get moved over one stud bay as well when we do the rest of the plumbing in the room.   In the ceiling, you can see the new vent duct ready to be hooked into a bathroom fan (which is stockpiled in our garage).

We have a laundry room!  It’s amazing how much you can do when you have a goal you are committed to.  Last week, we set a goal to get the washer and dryer moved over into the new room by this weekend.  It was definitely a stretch goal.  There were a lot of steps to accomplish.  We worked really hard and got it done.

Victory!

It was not an easy process getting them moved over.  There were several steps that needed to be accomplished.

• Electric
  • Install the basement subpanel
  • Run the beefy 6-3 wire from the subpanel to the main panel
  • Wire up the new outlets in the laundry room
• Water
  • Run a new water line to feed the washer and the sink
  • Insulate the hot water lines
  • Get the 1″ sprinkler line installed that runs above the washer and dryer
• Vent
  • Drill a 4 1/4″ hole in the steel coal chute door
  • Plumb in the new vent line
• Drain
  • Finish running the drain line

Here we are last week working on running the new wire to the subpanel.  We had to cut some access holes in the wall to make the run.  We pulled the new wire into this crazy junction box, which is the old circuit breaker panel and then into the main panel.  The actual main panel is right behind this large box on the outside of the house.

Wiring up the new subpanel.

Heres what it looks like so far.  We have a couple more circuits to put in when we do the bathroom.

Getting the new dryer plug wired up and ready to go.  I’m getting tired.  This is 9pm on Friday.

The drain line is now finished.  Time to call it a night.  10pm Friday.

Saturday must be here.  We both look rested and energetic.  After a run to Home Depot for various supplies, we started working on cutting the hole in the old coal chute door.  We’re using the coal chute space for our dryer vent.  Kathryn is holding what used to be a hole saw, R.I.P.  After figuring out where we needed the hole, I drilled the pilot hole.  That went just fine.  Then I touched the hole saw teeth down and they started to cut…for about 2 seconds.  After the ~2 seconds, we stopped cutting the hole and started cutting away the teeth.  This all happened even with cutting lube.  This is a cheapo Harbor Freight hole saw that is supposed to be able to cut wood or metal.  Am I surprised the saw failed?  Not at all.  It did make two other important holes for us, so it was worth the money we paid for it.  Luckily we’ve accumulated a pretty good tool collection working on this old house and we got out our jig saw and it was able to make the cut in decent time.

Prior to starting this basement project, we never once opened up the coal chute door.  I guess we just assumed it was sealed shut.  Once we got the idea of using it for the dryer vent, we pried it open to see if that would work.  What we found was a straight shot right into our basement under the kitchen floor for about 5 feet.  All that was keeping the bugs out was nothing.  All that was keeping the heat in was an 1/8″ piece of steel.  No wonder the floor under the kitchen table has always been a little chilly in the winter.  Thus, the insulation we packed in around the dryer vent.  This can do nothing but help make the house a little more comfortable and efficient.

Here is a picture of the dryer vent all finished.

Kevin was great to come over Saturday evening and help drive us to victory.  He helped me finish up a couple of the odds and ends jobs.  Then he was part of the muscle of the operation.  The dryer is pretty easy to move around, but the washer is quite heavy!  Thankfully we didn’t have to do any stairs.  Kathryn was feeling a little bad that we were doing all the heavy lifting while she was watching.  I told her that there is more to an operation than just the muscle.  “That’s good,” she said, “because I’d like to continue to be part of the operation.”  

Here they are, fully operational.

The hookups.

The old nook, soon to be morphed into the 2nd half of the new bathroom.

There is a great satisfaction you get when you finish a project.  With the size of the basement remodel project, we get to enjoy many small victories, but the major finish is still a long way off.  Also, now with the basement project underway, other projects we’ve been putting off seem small and trivial in comparison.  Thus we decided to jump in and attack the hall closet and turn it into a pantry.  Within 24 hours of the outset, we finished the project.  This victory goes to Kathryn for her amazing planning and execution.  Now we have officially refinished the entire main floor and bonus room.

Next up, replumbing the house.  After a lot of planning and a lot of acquiring parts and supplies, we kicked off the official house replumbing phase.  Kevin came over and spent the whole day helping us.  THANK YOU!

First step, turn off the water main.

Family picture by the main distribution point.  It looks especially cluttered with the pex lines we ran to the kitchen sink on Kathryn’s birthday eve that are hooked in temporarily.  Also there are the new lines to the water heater waiting to be hooked in.

Kevin wielding the new DeWalt saw.  It was a very good purchase and saved us hours and hours of hack sawing.

Starting to come out.  Lots of the lines are out and we’re working on breaking the main water entry point loose.

Success!  Now it’s time to start rebuilding.  Time is ticking away and we’re working as fast as we can in order to turn the water to the house back on.  It’s kind of weird going an entire day with no running water and only buckets.

Water is back on around 7:30 pm!  No leaks!   Overall, we were only a couple of parts short and Kathryn was able to get them for us while we kept working away.

It looks so much better, and the risk of scalding or freezing is much reduced when taking a shower and water gets turned on somewhere else in the house.  Also, some of those old pipes were pretty nasty on the inside.  We might have to start taking extra vitamin pills now.

Notice the bandaid on my head.  I was working on removing a pipe union when the crescent wrench slipped off the pipe with and whacked me straight in the forehead.  Ouch!