Laundry/Bath: The Backstory

A lot of people have questioned why we want to combine our laundry room with the half bath that functions as a guest bath. Allow me to explain.

Last year, we had some minor flooding issues in our basement. Minor in that the water wasn’t deep and nothing was really damaged; but major enough that we had water in a lot of places all across the basement floor. The existing sump pumps were not near where the water was leaking in, and if we wanted to preserve the space something needed to be done.

We called a couple contractors to come do a consult for an internal French drain. In the process, we learned that our foundation wall was also bowing. All of these expected repairs prompted us to tear out all of the existing “finished basement” walls.

To be honest, it was just a good excuse. The basement was broken up into rooms that made sense, they just didn’t make sense for us. And they were basically studs with paneling. We knew we’d want to upgrade it someday, and now was as good a time as any.

As we considered the possibilities (and our now family of 4 that was only 3 when we bought the house), we realized another full bath would be a nice addition to the house that currently only has 1.5 baths. Since they were already jackhammering the concrete footer of the house for the French drain, we had them plumb for the bath at the same time.

Throughout the thought process, and big dreams of what the basement would become, we decided that we wanted to move the washer and dryer to the main floor of our ranch home.

This is our current half bath.

It functions. I mean, it’s got a toilet, and a sink, and a nice mirror. It does it’s job.

It’s just off the family room and in an awkward hallway behind the kitchen. The wall that all the plumbing is on is the same wall that houses the plumbing for our full bath on the other side — the only other bathroom in the house; about 10 steps away.

We considered taking out this bath altogether, and putting the washer/dryer in the space instead. This was the plan for a while, until I realized that the doors of our front loaders wouldn’t really work in the narrow space. And that closet in front of the bathroom? Yeah, it doesn’t really get used like it should.

So why not take out the closet and make a bigger room? Well, there’s an idea!

Except now, the space would be bigger than we really need it to be. And really, do we want guests to be forced to use our main bath with the toothpaste in the sink? (I mean, let’s be honest.) Also, resale value always says to never remove a toilet. So the idea was born to keep the toilet and combine the half bath with a laundry area. And yes, we decided to keep the sink too.

I posed these design options to my friends on Facebook and asked for their opinions. I got what I asked for.

While my friends were vocal, they were not in agreement. Some liked the first option because they felt it flowed best; others thought it was a lot of wasted space.

Some wanted the middle option because it provided the most opportunity for storage in the open corner.

Others wanted the option of the washer/dryer side-by-side so they could use the space on top for folding.

I was at an impasse. I’m horrible at making big decisions and my attempt to find a consensus was not working. Enter my awesome husband and his way to assist my brain.

I present the bathroom mock-up.

This is our living room floor.

With masking tape outlining the bathroom dimensions.

And the toilet being represented by Duplo blocks (complete with a small figure sitting on it).

And a cardboard square the approximate footprint of our washer/dryer (he built 2 of these).

I spent longer than I care to admit moving these pieces around, adding more tape to represent a vanity, and moving myself through the “room” with a laundry basket.

When all was said and done, I finally reached a decision and my husband agreed (or at least conceded because he was sick of my indecisiveness). Here is our final plan:

The closet is gone. The washer/dryer are stacked. And we are relocating the sink and replacing it with a smaller profile vanity. The only things not moving are the toilet and the window. And I can’t wait to get started!

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Laundry/Bath: The Backstory
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