Laundry Room

We've been living in our house for a little more than 3 years. Naturally that means it's time to remodel. Back when we were in the final planning stages before building, I took the main level laundry room and turned it into a basement laundry room while I was trying to down size (i.e. fit into the budget). It's safe to say that Monica wasn't overly impressed with that decision. Well, I've come up with a solution and have started the process to right my wrong.

Out in our garage we have this handy corner just to the right of the door that goes into the house. It has a window and really tall ceilings (same height as our house). It shares a wall with the "mud room". So, I'm turning this space into our new Main-Level laundry room.













I'm going to need to take out this closet inside the house to make it work. The doorway into the mudroom will be just to the left of that wooden picture frame on the wall. I use the term "doorway" very loosely because there won't be an actual door, just a cased opening.










I got started with the project on Memorial Day by cutting out the drywall around the perimeter of the area so I could fasten a ledger board onto the existing walls to hang the floor joists onto. My buddy JB has one of those sweet self leveling lasers that I was able to use to make my line all the way around the room. I was also able to borrow JB's 12" Bosch chop saw and his framing nailer too. JB spends his summer directing Bible Memory camps so he doesn't need his tools. I'm happy to keep them company. I'm using yellow pine 2x8's for the floor joists. The span is less than 8'. I wanted to maximize my clearance underneath the floor joists. At the end of my first day I had the ledger board on all the existing walls and a little over half of the floor joists in. I took the opportunity to preview our future view from the laundry room.






















I finally got back to the project on Saturday (06/14) and Monday (06/16) and was able to build the two little stub walls on the sides, put my header across the angled wall, and get all the rest of the floor joists in. I'm now ready to put down subflooring. I've got about 46" of clearance under the floor joists that will still allow for good storage in the garage. I left the opening a little over 48" wide. In theory I could park the riding lawn mower under there in the winter to get it out of the way. That could be interesting. I do plan to eventually get the freezer out of there. It's kind of a pain to only be able to lift the lid up about a foot.





Now that I've posted this project, hopefully I'll feel a little extra motivation to keep it moving along so I have something to post about. Don't worry though, I've got some other good stuff to blog about but I'm going to make you live in suspense a little while until I make that revelation. I can't play all my cards on the first day. Just take my word for it, it's better than a laundry room. How you ask? You'll just have to wait and see (all three of you reading this).