Remodeling Our Hut Part 13: Laundry/Mudroom Framing

August 1, 2019 and Phil and Bob were hard at work building the mudroom addition.   I opted to have a second entrance to the new basement added in the garage floor when Charlie dug the mudroom foundation.  This way we can access the basement from the garage as well as the house. 

The new stairwell will take up almost the entire west wall of the garage, but we often had stuff piled up in that area and it was unusable anyway. It's a win-win, this will force us to keep the garage clean.   

 

We were all leery of the hole where the staircase would be built and thankfully, no one fell in.

There are two doors in the mudroom, each side by side.  One leads to the attached garage and the other to the back yard.

Broom closet in the making

The mudroom will have one large closet for clothes and two smaller ones; one will be a broom closet for certain.  I have always wanted a place to put the brooms and the vacuum cleaner.   

There will also be a small shower, toilet and vanity along with space for a washer and dryer in the new laundry room.  

The new laundry/bathroom is on the left, door to driveway is in the middle and the closets are to the right.

 We'll see how it goes, but for now, I'm not going to rush out and buy a washer or a dryer right away.  My old 1952 Maytag wringer washer still works and I do love line-dried laundry.  

The first time I did laundry here at the Hobbit, I had to have Joel come over after work and teach me how to use an automatic machine.   I know nothing about such new-fangled devices, though the appliances are from the early 1980's and hardly new.  There's a sudsaver on the washer here, and I hear those have also gone the way of the dinosaur.  I guess if I ever do buy brand-new machines I'll need another tutorial.  

I understand that an automatic machine does most of the work for you, but it certainly seems to take a long time to actually wash the laundry.  With my old wringer, I can be done in half the time the automatic takes.  To be fair, yes, there is far less effort involved, but I miss my old Maytag and I think as long as I can still haul laundry out of the basement, I'll stick with it for now. 

The dryer, however, intrigues me.   In the spring and summer months on a sunny, breezy day, the wash dries quickly and smells glorious.  In the fall and winter, I always hung the laundry in the basement and by the next day it would be dry.  I might be converted to buying a dryer eventually, but again, we'll see.  I'm in no hurry.

Anyway, after my tutorial from  Joel on the do's and don'ts of washing clothes earlier in the day,  I threw in my second load of wash late in the evening after Carl had gone to bed.  We'd both had a hard day; Carl had worked long hours and we hadn't gotten back from our remodel construction site until nearly 10PM.  I had a bunch of dishes to do, so I decided, ok, I'll see how this multi-tasking thing works; apparently I can wash dishes and do other housework at the same time.  

Ann usually calls me when she is done with her night shift job and I was chatting with her while I did the dishes and swept the floor.  

"See how nice it is to do laundry now? Ann said.  "You don't have to stand there and do all that work, you can do other things."

"Yes, I guess you're right, this does seem more efficient in some ways," I said as I opened the back door of the Hobbit house to shake the rugs in preparation for laundering.  

As I went out the door, I never gave a thought to the fact the door would lock behind me.  Until it did. 

There I was at midnight, stranded outside the house wearing my nightgown and flip flops.  I tried the doorknob a few times, stupidly thinking it would open, but no such luck.  Thank goodness I was still on the landline phone with Ann.

"Oh, great!" I said to Ann.  "Now I've gone and locked myself out."

I told Ann I was going to hang up and call Carl to see if the ringing phone would wake him up so he could open the door, and I tried, but to no avail.  Carl was in a deep sleep and no mere phone ringing would rouse him.

I debated walking around the back of the house to knock on the bedroom window.  Though the Hobbit house is underground, there are southern and eastern exposure windows and I could probably have woken Carl if I rapped hard enough.  But this was in July and with all of the work we'd been doing I hadn't mowed the lawn since last fall.  The grass was way over my knees, soaking wet and mosquito-infested.  I was not totally familiar with the terrain in the dark and landline telephones do not have flashlights built in.  I have always been a night owl and am not afraid of the dark, but I hesitated; flip flops and a nightgown in long, wet grass?  Ugh.  I didn't want to do it.

I called Ann back as I swatted at the whining mosquitoes and we debated a few more ideas including having Ann pick me up from the east side of town which is a good half hour drive, but that wouldn't work, either.  I'd still be locked out.

Front view of porch and mudroom

I decided to call Joel to see if he would come as he has a key to the house.  Just by chance, he was still awake and willing to drive around the block to rescue his maternal unit.  I was very thankful to see him arrive.  After he opened the door, I gave him a hug and he was on his way back home.  

I went back to the laundry room and stuck with it this time.  No more lollygagging outside for me in the middle of the night.  I'm going to stay in the house where I belong. 




Good thing for us Joel lives nearby.  

(Possibly a bad thing for Joel that we live nearby.) 

However, I blame the mishap on the automatic washer and dryer.  The darn things corrupted me.  There is no way I'd ever hang laundry out at midnight doing it the old way. 

You can't see the clothespins in the dark.