First Load

Now that the washer and dryer are upstairs and hooked up (thank you, Two Men and a Truck!), I was able to complete my first load of laundry on the main floor of this house.  How wonderful that was!  I did not have to carry the laundry downstairs, and I certainly appreciated not having to carry it all back up the stairs again.

The washer and dryer and installed and working well.
The Vroom vacuum is visible in the lower cabinet.

As we had feared, since the Miele washing machine spins at a higher-than-normal speed, it shook the whole room when it went through the spin cycle.  It also shook the range in the kitchen and some of the kitchen cupboards.  The revolutions shook the dust loose in the basement, too, so we will have to look into adding some sister joists to the floorboards and some braces between the joists to stabilize the structure under the washer.

The dryer, since it now has a shorter vent run to the outside, seemed to work very efficiently.  I still have to figure out where to store extra detergent and other laundry items, but I am happy that the process worked well... with no water leaks!

The same could not be said for the water poring from the sky, however.  We have experienced rains since Friday, including severe storms on Sunday evening and last evening. High winds made us thankful that we had the large trees removed from the yard earlier this summer, but the thunder and lightening kept me awake from 1:30 this morning until I finally arose at 5:30.  The Prednisone I am taking contributes to the insomnia, so last night was NOT a restful evening.

This afternoon a cold front came through the area, brining even more rain. We watched as $400 worth of new grass seed floated away or into pocket puddles throughout the yard.  Our side yard was completely under water, and Rick was a hero as he went out into the storm to reattach our neighbor's downspout.  Her basement window wells were filled to the top, and we feared that if the water continued to gush over rather than through the downspout, her whole basement would be flooded.

We are heartsick about the yard.  The first blush of grass had just started to show when the flooding came in.  We have no idea how much new grass we finally will see grow, but it certainly will not be all that we paid for last week.  However, tornadoes touched down in the state, so we are thankful that our house was not damaged in the storms.

Base shoe completes the outside of the lower cabinets and outlines
the area under the desk.

As the rains poured down, we worked inside.  Rick installed the base shoe around all of the lower cabinets.  He also added molding around the laundry floor.  We had to put a special floor under the washer and dryer since they cannot rest on a floating laminate floor.  We had some molding remaining from when we installed the floor, however, so it fit very nicely into our new flooring plans.

We reinstalled the drawers into the laundry unit bases, and I gave them all a good cleaning.  I was amazed at how dusty the units were being in the basement.  The light is not good down there, so I never noticed how much they both needed a good scrubbing.

When the movers carried up the laundry units, I also asked
them if they would bring the loom upstairs.  We brought the
smaller one up today, too, so we will be able to weave in the room also.

This afternoon the slot-cutting bit for the router and the edging for the cabinet shelves arrived.  That means that on Thursday we can take all of the plywood shelves and cut the slot for the edging.  Then we can finish sealing and varnishing them.  When they are dry, we will insert the edging and have the shelves complete for the upper cabinets and one small base cabinet.

Since the laundry units are now level and functional, we were able to secure the small cabinet next to the washer.  Then Rick installed the Vroom central vacuum system in that base.  I am very happy having an instantly-on vacuum in the room with a 24 foot retractible hose.  It has the full power of the central vacuum system, and the supplied hose is small enough to actually go into my dryer lint collection area.  It has not been this clean in years!

We planned on taking the day off tomorrow as we agreed to watch Owen for the day.  Rick said all week, "Watch.  The one day that we have plans elsewhere, the plumber will call and try to come to install our new water heater."  Sure enough.  We received a call tonight asking if they could come tomorrow to install the new tankless water heater.  Since they are so busy, we could not refuse their schedule.  Owen and I will bake bread in the morning and play a while; then we will go out for pizza for lunch.  In the afternoon, I will take him back to his house so I can make a big pot of chicken noodle soup for dinner.  If Rick stays here to be with the plumbers, so be it.  Owen is a great kid, so I am sure that we will be fine. I suspect that since the temperatures are supposed to drop drastically tomorrow, the chicken soup may be a welcome dinner when Chris and Lindsay come home from work.

Although we still have drawers and slide-outs to make, we both are anxious for Alise to come in to measure for the cabinet doors.  That will not happen for a couple more weeks.  Once the doors are complete, we will pick them up and install them ourselves.  We are having the same company who made our current kitchen cabinet doors manufacture matching raised-panel doors for the laundry room since the rooms are adjacent to one another.

The granite people are so busy that they will not come to measure for the granite until October; consequently, we will not have any countertops until mid-October.  By then, we sincerely hope that everything else will be finished in the room.

Our goal is to have everything completed by Halloween.  Then we can enjoy the holidays without having to work around construction in our reconfigured old home.