-- Flooded & Bruised --

We are coming off a long-weekend here in Ontario and while I really wanted to be in Winnipeg spending the time with my friends Kelley and April, I wasn't able to get away for a long-enough period of time to make it worth the trip.  So as a consolation prize, Lucas and I started working on our laundry area in our basement.  

We were lucky enough to find a great deal on a front-load washer and dryer just before leaving for Mexico and the purchase got us motivated (ok, maybe more me than us) to spruce up the completely unfinished basement area.  Here is how it looked on Saturday morning after we had moved out the old washer and dryer, set up the new washer and dryer and removed the old, stained laundry tub.  Don't you love all the pink insulation, plastic and Tuck Tape?  I know that I don't.

Our plan for this area is very low-budget.  We want to close in the walls around the washer/dryer with some painted plywood (apparently easier for my woodworker husband to work with than drywall), add some cabinetry for storage and a new sink/faucet to replace the laundry tub.

So this weekend, we needed to start by beefing up the walls with some extra 2x4s so that when it comes time to hang the wall cabinets, we would have something to attach them to.  This required pulling out some of the insulation and replacing it around the new 2x4s.  We also needed to do some minor adjustments to the copper pipes to make them fit around the new cabinetry but given our practice in our bathroom, this job was easy-peasy!

Then came the job of getting the plywood downstairs and fit into the areas. This was more complicated than we expected as the space is incredibly tight.  We needed to work around the washer/dryer, a water softener, storage cabinets and a bunch of hoses/drains/copper pipe etc.  The first couple of pieces went ok...

This began the giant comedy of errors that characterized our weekend.  Here's a recap of the headaches that we encountered along the way (we were kind of too frustrated to take pictures):

      Failed to measure perfectly.

Result: A larger than anticipated gap between sheets of plywood.

      Forgot to mark the location of studs.

Result: Needing to shimmy a skinny arm under the plywood to get an idea of where the stud was.  Ended  up with several "tester" nails that didn't hit a stud and thus much more wall repair than planned.

      Removing the drain hose for the water softener to accommodate the renovations and forgot to replace it.

Result: A 4" flood in the basement laundry area when we got up in the morning.  This meant, wet plywood walls, wet stereo system, wet storage cabinets, and crazy wet carpet that needed to be removed from under the storage cabinets, washer/dryer, water softener etc...

      Crushed the dryer vent trying to get a particularly stubborn piece of plywood bent under an HVAC vent.  Result: Additional trip to Home Depot to get replacement vent parts.  An annoyed husband trying to get it all fixed before a snowstorm.  Said husband getting frustrated trying to fit all the pieces together.  A subsequent slip off of the step stool and falling directly onto the side of his hand.  He then realized he couldn't grip anything (not even a shampoo bottle, let alone a hammer or drill...)  So, then a wife-induced trip to the hospital for an x-ray in the middle of a snowstorm!  But luckily, nothing was broken, just a mighty bad bruise!

So, yeah.  This project isn't exactly going as planned.  We've flooded the basement, almost broken bones and basically gotten really frustrated many, many times.  But, as of late last night, all of the plywood is up and secure, the dryer vent is repaired, everything has been primed and Lucas' hand is healing.  Here's how the laundry area looks now...

A close-up of the sink area.  The walls are ready for the cabinets to be hung and the ledge/bump-out to accommodate the washer and water softener drains is built and primed.

When we get the chance, we'll give the walls a bit of a sand and get some paint on the walls... Fingers crossed that next weekend's work won't be quite so frustrating!