Plumbing in C Minor

Not a typical place to start but my reno madness seems to have started off in the laundry room. Ok, no actual "renovation" was done, just a little reorganization with a necessary trip to Home Depot.

This is what it looked like after I moved in

Late last night as I puttered around dealing with a bad headache (it's odd that I always find inspiration when I'm in some sort of physical pain or illness). I had been debating the functionality of my little laundry room for the past couple of weeks.

My laundry room is about a 5 x 6 room with an apartment sized stacked washer and dryer and nothing else. I had installed my 4 tiered plastic shelving unit in there and stored my vacuum, steamer and laundry basket along with it. Ok. So far nice and utilitarian. But the shelving unit had to be placed by the back wall. It was an awkward placement as I couldn't really access much of the shelf. Anytime I wanted something on it I had to do some kind of balancing act worthy of Cirque Du Soleil. I seemed to be tripping over something every time I walked in and when I did laundry I was basically backed up against a wall and feeling rather claustrophobic. So I decided to do a little rearrangement. I wanted to get the washer/dryer over in the left corner, giving room to allow the shelving until to fit on the right side of the room, thus allowing me to access all the shelves and to not be backed up against a wall when I did laundry. Better flow.

Now with any project that I've taken on, there's always a catch. Some kind of hurdle to figure out. In this case, hook-up placement. Meaning the placement of the hot and cold taps, drain for water drainage and the dryer vent wasn't exactly conducive to my replacement of the washer/dryer. The water hoses were too short, the drainage hose was too short and the dryer was too short - yeah...great. 

So off to Home Depot I went this morning in search of supplies. I found a flexible aluminum dryer vent, some clamps to secure things, 2 new water hoses, 2 nipples, (yes, nipples...to those who lack reno-speak, it's just a connector to connect two hoses together - I couldn't find hoses bigger than 5 feet and I thought I may need a longer span than that so the HD guy suggested the nipples to form an extension), and a flexible plastic tube for drainage. 

uhm...the nipple in question

metal clamp

drainage hose

dryer vent

metal braided water hose

So I reused the 45 degree elbow and reconnected the dryer vent and used the clamps to secured it - using a little duct tape for good measure. I replaced the drainage tube to extend the present 4 feet of tube with a 5 footer. Now the water hoses were an adventure. I disconnected the hoses at the taps, screwed on the new longer hoses and connected them together with the nipple...uh...connector (seriously, could you really walk into Home Depot, go up to a sales associate and say "I'm looking for some nipples" without going red-faced or bursting into fits of laughter)?. All seemed to be good to go. However I do suggest when working with water that you keep a bucket nearby to catch any "misconceptions". This turned out to be a wise thought as both hoses leaked profusely at the connection point. Crap. Not good. I then made a realization - the old hoses were actually only 4 feet long, the new ones were 5 feet. 5 feet turned out to be the perfect length to get around the back of the newly-positioned washer/dryer. So the old hoses got ditched and the new ones were installed. No leaks! :-) Now I say that at this point as of the time that I am writing this I haven't operated the washer/dryer again yet with it's replaced parts and new locale. Another good piece of advice is keep all packaging and your receipt as you never know what will work and what won't when doing a minor repair, alteration, etc...otherwise it's good to have your packaging and receipt when you have to return your nipples...lol.

So here is the result:

Ok, still a bit of a mess. I would like to see some matching bins for the shelf, painted walls and something better to hold my recycling (the banker box on the laundry is my make-shift recycling centre). But overall, I'm very happy with the new arrangement and I think it was worth the $50 in supplies to make it happen. Laundry sucks - so it might as well be in a room that you can enjoy.