The Legacy of 3283: Laundry and Bathroom Prep

There seems to be an endless number of "little things" that need to be done before the drywall can be installed. Yesterday and today I worked on a couple of these things in the future laundry area and the new bathroom.

The laundry area needs a dedicated 20 Amp circuit to serve the washer and gas dryer. The only outlet on the wall where the washer/dryer will be was on the 15 Amp circuit that served most of the original cottage. Yesterday morning I replaced it with a new outlet connected directly to the circuit breaker box. And I relocated the old outlet to an open wall in the room. While I was doing electrical work I installed wiring for a future light above the washer and dryer.

In the afternoon I addressed the floor on which these machines will rest. The floors here at 3283 are simply tongue and groove 3/4 inch boards spanning 24 inch on center floor joists. They are relatively sturdy, though sometimes squeaky. In the laundry area a number of these boards were cut to allow plumbing and heating ducts to pass through the floor. This caused the laundry floor to be "soft" in some spots. My solution was to install a 5/8 inch thick piece of plywood over the entire laundry area. This will bridge the soft spots and make the area much more structurally sound. Hopefully the vibrations of the washer and dryer will now be managed appropriately.

Here you can see much of my day's work.
The outlet on the back wall is for the washer/dryer.
The electrical box higher on the wall is for the light as is the switch on the right.
The relocated outlet is on the far right...into which my compressor is plugged.
And the plywood is on the floor.

This space will be occupied - left to right - by:
Laundry Tub, Washer, Dryer.

Today I focused on the new bathroom. There will be "knee walls" between the vanity and toilet and between the toilet and the shower. We needed to keep these walls as narrow as possible to let the vanity fit properly and keep the shower a good size. I used 2x4 lumber to frame these walls but built them with the "2 inch" side on the faces and tops. To do this, and make them as sturdy as possible I created "half lap joints" where the boards are connected. This required a lot of work to cut away half the depth of each end of each board. Luckily I just found a sliding miter saw at an estate sale. It paid for itself today and in doing so created a lot of sawdust and some nice half lap joints.

My sliding miter saw set up to cut the joints at the ends of each board.

Here you can see one of the boards with the half lap cuts made on both ends.

Here you can see the two knee wall pieces laying on the bathroom floor.
They are not yet assembled.
The extra board in the far wall is to support a seat that will be built in the shower.
They will be installed where the double strips of tape are on the floor.

As I said I made a lot of sawdust cutting the boards to make the joints. But I wasn't done making dust for the day. We decided to use a tile company that will install cement board to support the tile in the shower. Therefor the drywall will need to stop at the edge of the shower space. I failed to plan for this and thus had to install new studs where the two materials will meet. The inside wall wasn't a problem. But.....the outside wall cavity had been filled with spray foam insulation. I spent close to two hours chipping out enough of the foam to install a 2x6 stud [sideways] in the wall. It was a tedious and messy, messy job. As I sit typing I have sawdust and foamdust all over me waiting to be washed off in the shower.

I used a cut off tool to carve into the foam.
It worked quite well, but was slow and messy.

This pile of foam chippings is from about the bottom half of the wall.

I made a "tool" to check that the opening
was wide enough and deep enough to fit the stud.
It also made sure the new stud would be flush with adjacent studs.

But by the end of the day both of the new studs are in place. And when the knee walls are installed the room will be ready fro drywall.