My several weekend project to redo laundry closet

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ctviggen

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My several weekend project to redo laundry closet
« on: 5 Oct 2014, 12:33 pm »
We moved into a house that has a laundry closet with bi-fold doors.  We wanted to make this more functional.  The first thing I did was to vent the dryer outside via the front wall (on the right in the pictures below).  This means that instead of the exhaust traveling 20+ feet into the basement, around obstacles, and through a wall, the exhaust now travels less than two feet.  I think they did not want to do this as the exhaust is now near a front entrance.  However, the dryer now I swear runs one-half to one-third the time.

Second, I added some blocking that runs around the outside perimeter of the closet.  You can see it below and also all the wires and water lines. 



This closet has a laundry "chute" that opens to a hole in our closet.  This is the hole:



I took exacting measurements of the area and had a counter made.  I also had them cut holes for the wires and water lines.  The counter simply sits on the blocking.  I added some blocking at the front of the counter, between the washer/dryer and the counter.  Here is an after shot:



The door on the left is simply a front part of a cabinet, and the two doors on the right are a cabinet.  The bar is into a stud on the right and the side of the cabinet on the left. You can see how much more functional this is.  Also, we can now use the laundry chute without the clothes falling behind the washer and dryer.  Here's a shot of the new laundry chute:



Another thing we fixed is that the bi-fold doors don't allow the washer and dryer doors to completely open.  We were using blocks of wood to prop open the doors, but we'd forget the wood was there and we'd go to shut the doors.  We were going to ruin the doors.  So, I got a magnet at Home Depot and used it to determine which knobs were magnetic.  Only three were.  Luckily, one of the magnetic knobs was big and two of these are now on the bi-fold doors.  They also had matching smaller knobs that are on the doors for the cabinets.  It took a while to determine which magnet to use, and we used a hot glue gun to attach the magnet to the front of the doors of the washer and dryer.  We had to use the strongest and biggest magnet at Home Depot. Now, you just open the doors for the washer/dryer, the magnets stick to the knobs on the bi-fold doors, and everything stays open!

Here's a closer picture:





Anyway, these are just some ideas in case you have a closet like this.  This was much more expensive than I thought it would be.  We spent about $1,000 after everything.  The cabinet, cabinet front, and counter were about $840 or so.  We had to get the second to the bottom rung cabinets because we needed some deeper cabinets (18 inches), and the bottom run cabinetry was only 15 inches deep.  No wonder kitchen remodels cost upward of 40 grand, because the cabinets we got I thought were pretty cheaply made (though they look nice).  This also took several weekends, an entire weekend just to put a hole in the wall for the dryer exhaust and rim the closet with blocking.  Another part of a weekend to order everything.  Another good part of a weekend to put in the cabinets and the bar.