In Which A Laundry Room Is Built

This was written on the seventeenth of September, 2018. For timeline tracking, it has been backdated to the day of delivery of the laundry pair.

When we bought the house, we knew we wanted to move the laundry out of the basement. In our previous house, the laundry was on the second floor and apart from the back-of-the-head worry about flooding, it was actually really convenient. There was no way we would be able to put a laundry room on the second floor of the new house without loosing a bedroom, but I had a plan for adding a laundry space to the first floor.

Where the original house and the addition meet, there is a "wing" hallway that runs in between the two constructions with a row of closets and the electrical panel to the south, and another closet and the bathroom to the north. While the south wing has a window at the end of it, it remains a sort of "wasted" space: the only time you would ever go more than 1/3 of the way down the hall is to get something out of the far closet.

I hate the idea of wasted space in my own home, and I hate narrow utility hallways even more: every time I saw one when we were house hunting, I wrote the house off and skipped to the next house. Now don't get me wrong, hallways serve an important function. It's just that in my opinion, a good floorplan eliminates narrow connecting hallways in order to improve the quality of living for those who have to live in them.
Anyway, my plan was to sneak a laundry space into the far closet on the south wing of the hallway. It really was the perfect space, tucked away out of sight but still convenient and near the living spaces so I wouldn't forget I had a load waiting to go to the dryer. It would be located on an exterior wall, so venting the dryer would be easy and it even had a window for light and to help remove excess heat and moisture when air drying. Only one small catch: the closet was not deep enough. Because the addition wall the closets backed up against is both load bearing and contains a very large pocket door, the closets were barely 24" deep, and that wasn't going to cut it. Even the most compact units were still 25" deep and required at least and inch of rear-clearance. I thought about closing the hallway off, and building it into an actual room, or building the closet wall out to gain the extra inches we needed, but in the end, none of those ideas seemed like good ones. I also considered putting the laundry in the kitchen pantry, but neither of us liked that location. Luckily, on the north "wing," there was another closet, but unlike the ones on the south wing, this one was 27" deep. Initially, I was reluctant to use place the laundry on the north wing for a number of reasons: it was visible from the front door, it had no window for ventilation, and most importantly, it didn't make use of the genuinely useless south wing. Instead of turning a useless space into a very functional space, I would be cramming the laundry into the flow of traffic for the only bathroom on the first floor; not an ideal placement.
Over time, lack of a functioning laundry and any reasonable alternatives caused the location to grow on me. And at least the plumbing hookup would be simple.

Unfortunately, by this stage in the remodel, I was getting pretty burnt out, so the picture documentation is a little spotty.

I started by ripping out the closet shelves, divider, and rods and trimwork which was a lot harder than it should have been. The last layer of paint left the walls an off white, but there were at least 3 or 5 layers of paint, and one of them was a very strong salmon that resisted my attempts to hide with blocking primer and paint. Additionally, the last few layers of paint were added while the shelves and dividers were installed, creating very thick and hard paint ridges and valleys that I had to putty and try to skim over. After a lot of sanding, I had a wall that I was okay with: after all, most of it would be covered by the appliances anyway.
Next, I built a laundry pedestal and furred out a 2x6 wall on the left side of the closet to accommodate the plumbing. I also wanted some storage and a worktop in the closet and I had the perfect countertop. Back in college, I ran across an oak butcher block offcut on the curb for free, so I carried it a mile home in the blazing summer heat and used it as a makeshift table in the kitchen. This was back before my back problems (huh, you don't think...) and I would never even think about trying that today: just thinking about it makes my back hurt. Anyway, it was perfect for my dream laundry closet.
Before I could finalize the pedestal, I had to decide on what laundry pair I was going to go with so I wouldn't end up with space for half a dryer. After much research, I settled on the very compact (and stupidly expensive) 300 series Bosch condensation washer and dryer pair. The condensating system has mixed reviews, but it meant I didn't have to worry about dryer venting and they were also the most compact units I could find apart from the dorm room portable units (which I seriously considered). Lowes had a sale that combined with their credit card discount so I ended up with 15% off msrp: not the cheapest, but I didn't have that much choice if I wanted a 1st floor laundry, and I refused to do laundry in the basement. Especially once I finished building my workshop.
I tried to save as much of the lumber removed during demo in the basement, so I was able to recycle some of the old and super dense 2x4s into the frame. There are quite a few plans and videos on laundry pedestals online, and many of them seem a little too flimsy to handle long term vibrations one would expect from a washer or dryer. I tried to build mine as sturdy as possible, tying the load paths directly into the floor joists or wall studs. i think it turned out pretty good.
Once the pedestal was built, the plumber arrived and spent an hour making a lot of grunting noises in the attic and crawlspace. When he emerged, I had a working laundry hookup. The box is a Sioux Chief oxbox with mini water hammer arrestors and it's plumbed with pex and sharkbites into the copper water supply in the addition crawlspace. The plumber mentioned that the water pressure was very high, so I tested it with a meter, and at the hookups, it is 90 PSI: plenty of water pressure here.

In the following picture, you can see the older salmon paint bleeding through the test coat of green paint:

After the plumber left and the inspector signed off on the work, I closed up the wet wall with some of the plywood wall paneling I removed from the basement. none of the pieces were quite tall enough to reach the top of the closet, So I cut a smaller piece to fill the gap: the crown molding should hide the seam.

I also cut some trim work to hide the seams where the counter, frame, and walls meet.


Then went on 2 coats of valspar blocking primer and 3 coats of green paint for the walls that we picked out at the borg. For some reason, I was dead set on a blue-ish mint green for the laundry and I managed to talk my wife into it. In my defense, at least some of the house used to be a very similar minty-green, so it's historical! The pedestal and counter framing got three coats of the same sherwin williams custom white I used on the base moulding and built in upstairs.
The electrician also finished out the 240V and 120V hookup. With the Bosch units, the washer plugs into the dryer and both run off the 240V 30A circuit, so the 120V 20A outlet doesn't get much use. I'm not sure I'm happy with the 120V location, as it would be more useful at the countertop, but too late now. (and if we ever change brands, we're not completely hosed)

 And with the laundry pair in place: