next chapter: the laundry room

Last March Jim did a gorgeous job renovating and 'tarting up' the laundry/utility room. As we were soon leaving for South Africa and had a California couple staying in the house while we were away, expeiency demanded that he install a laminate floor to match the adjacent powder room rather than replace everything. What we didn't know then, but quickly learned, is that a front load washing machine should be on a rigid floor or concrete; in other words the shocks went on the washer leaving the drum crashing around quite dramatically. So we had the shocks replaced and went our merry way - until this past Sunday. I was downstairs in the studio and there was an almighty bang and ensuing racket overhead By the time I got upstairs the washer had walked itself across the room, no mean feat as it was tightly ensconced between the sink cabinet and the dryer. We didn't need the appliance repairman to know the shocks were gone again only 10 months later! We decided to cut our losses with our 8 year old GE Profile which we were told last year by the repairman wasn't a great model.

The offending washer

Monday I spent a lot of the day learning about washing machines from Consumer Reports and by the end of the day we had purchased a Samsung machine to be delivered on December 23; Merry Christmas. We got a good buy from 'Martin' at Sears who said he had never sold a Profile and never would. He also said that Samsung or LG were the best washers to buy because they have a direct drive system instead of a belt drive which stabilizes the vibration/broken shock issue. By now you have probably lost interest in this story but someday you may need the information so pay attention.

Jim dismantling the sink and lookiing a tad discouraged

How many screws?

Which brings me back to the floor since there was no point in putting a new washer on top of the laminate no matter how good the machine is. Luckily we have a good relationship with Tenor Tile and they are doing a big job for us in January so were predisposed to be extra kind to us. It is now only Thursday morning and Robin is here laying tile!

 However, between Monday afternoon and this morning Jim and I dismantled and emptied the laundry and powder rooms, and installed a new subfloor base for the tile (500 screws?) Once the tile is down we have to put it all back together again, only the new washer is 2 inches taller than the old one so the sink cabinet and counter top have to be adjusted to accomodate the new height. Are we having fun yet? And did I mention that since we had to pull out the toilet we decided to replace it with a water saving model? Another Consumer Reports search and I learned that there are a lot of highly touted toilets that don't make the grade. I figured we'd have to shop around and it would be a time-consuming search but we bought an American Standard Cadet 3 in less than 60 seconds from Bartle and Gibson (our first stop because it is so close by) for less than it would have cost at Home Depot. Go figure.

powder room looking good

In the meantime the office decor has changed considerably as we are boxed in by the freezer, sink, cabinet, counter and accumulated debris from across the hall.

Jim says there will be a door on the powder room by the end of today; it's functional but a bit exposed for guests to use! But he 'had' to play golf this morning so it's 2:30 and no door yet even though ; has accomplished an amazing amount in the last few days.
We'll take a break from this project until the washer arrives on Wednesday because I don't think we should fix the new height for the counter until we actually see the machine in position. I've gotten a  bit leary of measurements over the years and prefer to see for myself. But by Christams Eve we should be all systems go again having destroyed and rebuilt the space in 10 days with some important improvements.
And while that's not quite the end of the chapter, it's enough to be going on with. J.