We Have Laundry

It took a while – over a year – but we can now do laundry in the house. I wanted everything to be in place before I bought a washer and dryer. Electrical, plumbing and venting all needed to be altered to install a working and safe laundry area. Hiring a plumber to re-do the drains was the biggest expense. It actually cost more than the washer and dryer, but after two days we have a new stand pipe with a p-trap to replace the old drum trap and a new drain extension off an existing 4” vertical drain for the upstairs bathroom. It was all the little expenses that added up to be not so little that surprised me though. $30 of stuff to vent the dryer, $50 to wire the dryer outlet, another $30 to wire the washer outlet plus new water shutoffs, and no-burst washer hoses and it was about $200 just to connect everything.

I decided to vent the dryer through a window – temporarily. The pane was already broken and it’s right above the dryer. Eventually I want to vent through the foundation wall and maybe replace the windows above the dryer since only one has hinges and can open. ( I could add hinges to the other one maybe, but 30” in-swinging casement windows in the basement seem like a hazard since they are all open at about face level – 5’.)

To install the new outlets – one for the washer and one for the dryer – I decided to run the wires through the ceiling instead of running 30’ of conduit and competing with the water supply lines for space. This meant that I had to drill a hole through each joist and pull the 12 and 10 gauge wire across the room 1 foot above my head. It took a little effort and a little help and with the additional help of the reciprocating saw we got the wires down the wall and to the new outlet locations. The lathe and plaster were already pretty damaged on that wall anyway so I’m okay with the mess I made of it. Someday I’ll take out that section and put up some nice smooth drywall. Someday…after the electrical in the rest of the house is replaced, after the water supply lines are replaced…you know, someday.

But for now I can wash the sheets, and blankets, and jeans, and t-shirts and delicates without trudging down the street and procrastinating for 6+ weeks. I’ll probably still procrastinate but at least when I get desperate I can do a load of socks and underwear.

No, No, Nanette opens tomorrow and we’ll run for 5 weekends but after that I’m taking a break - I think. I want to , but I want to do a lot of things. If I decide to stay at home for a while, I want to start getting seeds for the side of the house and the vegetable garden, pick out a rose and scrape/repaint a trellis to grow it on. I want to start work on a patio for the back yard and start the fence. Before you know it the snow will be gone and it will be spring and we can start taking real walks with Yoshi and spending time outside. Yup, I’m done with winter.

Read More

Paying to get it done

So…it snowed a lot this last month (90+ inches), I finished the one show, Paul opened another, and I started rehearsals for a third. Oh, and I hired someone for the first time to do work on the house. After the last trip to the laundry mat with the 10 loads of laundry I realized that I wasn’t making any progress on getting us our own laundry set up. It’s been over a year and I just don’t have the time (and I’m not making the time to do it either). I asked around for recommendations, called a plumber and just had him do it. Actually, I looked at the estimate and said, “That’s a lot of money, how much of that could I do myself?” I decided to have the plumber just do the drains (which involved things like busting up concrete and cutting out sections of 80+ year old cast iron pipe – I didn’t want to mess that up) and I could do the water supply myself and install the sink.

It was still a lot of money to get the drains done by the plumber. I keep having this fantasy that when I get the bill it will be lower than the estimate because they got it done so fast. Right. I bit the bullet and finally ordered a washer and dryer and before they’re delivered I have to
1) replace the water shutoffs for the washer and move them 24” to the right.
2) redo 110v outlet for the washer (currently it has exposed romex and is near the ceiling).
3) move the 220v outlet from behind the refrigerator to behind the dryer.
4) install dryer vent in wall.
Later I still need to install my $3 laundry sink w/no legs and at the minimum make sure water from the super old laundry shut offs goes into the sink and not on the floor (they’re several inches past the edge of the sink location.)



The dryer outlet is where the red star is and the washer hookups are at the blue star. I'm sorry but I can't have the washer on one side of the basement and the dryer on the other; that isn't right. The square under the blue star? That's a 18" cube of concrete just hanging out in the basement. The new utility sink will go there using the washer water supply above, and the washer will use the water supply from the old sink under the windows.

I took pictures while I tore down and busted up the old concrete sink that I’ll post later. I had this crazy idea that I’d be able to put the sink in the backyard until I figured out what to do with it. After I got it down from the stand, I couldn’t move it 3 feet. Now I have three cardboard boxes full of busted concrete in the basement waiting for incremental disposal in my trash can.

Last weekend my dad helped me install a deadbolt in the basement door for the plumbers to gain access when we weren’t home (without giving them access to the whole house) and the hardest part of the whole thing is always getting everything lined up exactly. Because if it isn’t you can’t get both screws screwed in and it is so frustrating! Trying to put it together, take it apart, find a flashlight, get one lined up but loosen it to get the other in, now you can’t get the first screw to thread – and over and over until finally, magically it works and 10 seconds later your deadbolt is installed. It isn’t like I have any sense of false security with deadbolts since we have 100+ panes of glass in the house. Really I just needed key access from the outside and a deadbolt is easier than replacing the original mortise knob/lockset. Or I could start carrying around skeleton keys.

Read More