Bathroom Progress: Laundry Hall

The other half of the bathroom project is establishing a laundry hallway outside the bathroom.  I've made a ton of progress there too, and I am even adding a little surprise for the kids (stay tuned for that one!).  I decided to clad the walls in the hallway in bead board, and I am getting prepped to add flooring and doors for the under-stair storage area.  

Like the stairs and the rest of the basement hallways, I painted the walls and ceiling Sherwin Williams Dover White.  It's my favorite of the creamy whites, and has the feel of old white paints.  

While the bulk of the project will be done by the end of September with the bathroom, it's going to take a little longer with the laundry machines for a couple reasons: we had some project budgeting difficulties on other projects (we replaced our roof, and that had some expensive scope-creep.  More on that later too.), the dryer I want is on back order, and the new IRA incentives mean I can get some money back on delaying my originally-planned purchase to 2023. 

​Laundry Machines

​I know I'm going to use a heat pump dryer, and I had planned on doing so at the start of this project.  New incentives will be a nice boost to what I already had in mind.  The biggest reason I scoped a heat pump dryer is the ventless operation.  Going vent-free reduces a needed hole in my exterior, reduces fire risk from lint in a vent line, and they are generally extremely efficient machines.  All wins.

In most of my house, I'm a GE appliance user.  I've always had a great experience with their products, and if there is ever an issue, they make the ordering process really easy for both homeowners and repair professionals.  When we dropped our microwave/convection oven plate, it was such an easy process that I ordered a second oven rack for it as well. 

The downside to the GE dryer though is that they don't yet have a full-size heat pump dryer.  They do have a small-load one that should work, but I'm hopeful they have something by when we're ready to purchase.  

Otherwise, I may end up purchasing a Whirlpool: this is the model that is on back order, but with full-size machines it may be worth going outside my normal brand preference.  Plus, we are already using Whirlpool washers where we do laundry.  I'm already used to the interface even if I'd prefer to go back to analog dials.  

As always, we have a plan, a back up plan, and another back up plan.  

Additional Connections

The other thing I'm always considering in these kinds of spaces is providing access for if things do go wrong.  On that, I added an access panel in the bathroom going into the laundry closet: this will make it much easier to check things like drain line placement, electrical connections, and any issues at the back of the machines while they are installed.  Since a stacked washer and dryer weighs several hundred pounds, it'll be nice to get behind these without needing those to move.  

I also have a small access panel behind the bathroom toilet so we can still access the main vent stack and the change-over in our HVAC condensate line.  

It's all coming together.