One week ago, Bob and I were traveling back from a week in sunny California. We were celebrating our 20th anniversary. AHHHHH!!!! =D (Which I didn't blog about....oops!) The day before we left, I was doing our laundry...isn't that what you do...wait until the last possible minute and wash your clothes so you can pack them??? Anyway, 2 loads into it, my dryer broke. After screaming, "
What the HECK!!!!" at the dryer, hitting it a few times, slamming the door, and jiggling it...still no working sounds. What to do??We don't have very good laundromats around us. In fact, I don't even know where one is!! So, I ran around in search of a new dryer. I found one, bought it and loaded it in the van. As Bob was installing it, we discovered that it was TOO BIG for the space in our laundry room!! Even with the molding taken off!! We jimmied it in enough to just barely plug in. And started to dry our clothes
This was 9:00 pm....LONG night of laundry ahead ;(
Just to add to my drama...
As I was eating dinner, I broke off 1/2 of my back molar!! I was supposed to be at the airport the next day at 11:00 to leave for a WEEK!! At this point, I was so stressed, I started laughing like a hyena. A broken tooth and a too big dryer...and wet clothes!! What in the world?!?! I left a message on my dentist's voice mail begging and begging to squeeze me in right when they opened.
Finished the laundry and packed by 2:30am.....phone rings at 6:45am....if I can get there by 7:00am....they can take care of me!!! I was out the door like the house was on fire. I managed to get everything done and we made it to the airport without any problems. It took me a good 2 days to unwind from it all though!! On the 3rd day, I was enjoying my new open mind and the idea came to completely re-do the laundry room. I'd wanted cabinets for a long time...why not now?? So....this is what happened.
(Written/Narrator by BOB THE BUILDER...He sent an email off to his family so I just copied and pasted...it's fun!!) I love you Bob!! Thank you soooooo much!
Here’s what our laundry room used to look like. We had the washer and dryer next to a stand alone floor cabinet and a hanging wire rack with baskets for all of our stuff. Well, the day before we left on our California Adventure, the dryer broke. So, we had to get a new one ASAP to finish washing and drying our clothes for the trip. Julie got the matching dryer for our washer - but it was 3 inches bigger than the old one. Which, means the cabinet no longer fit. We had to turn it sideways so, it was no longer useable as we didn’t have access to the drawer or the doors. Therefore, we went to Lowes to get some new wall hanging cabinets.
We went with Hickory. Here we’ve laid out the cabinets to make sure we hang them right.
Next was to empty the laundry room and lay out the studs and laser marker to make sure we were level. Since there is not one straight line in this whole house - it made it challenging. We put up some ledger boards to hold the cabinets while we leveled, plumbed and screwed them in. Here’s the corner one. We were told to start here.
You can see the clamps on the tops and side as we are screwing the cabinets in and together.
Here’s the finished product. Quite a bit different than the before picture. I can’t believe we did it and in one day. It was a lot of work (especially because Nathan was on his band trip, Amanda was on a date and then babysat Adam and Lindsey’s kids. And Derrick was gone to his great Aunt’s place. So, Julie and I tackled the project together. We started around 1pm (after we finished the laundry for the week - as we didn’t know if we’d get it put back together in one day). We finished around 9pm. The bought part was getting the cabinets level and plumbed with the walls not level or plumbed. I went through 3 boxes of shims. Oh well - it was worth it now.
