But besides the environmental argument, I just like small houses. I find big houses tend to duplicate functions, cost more (to buy and to look after), require more cleaning and encourage you to fill them with even more junk you don't need. But beyond that, small houses also feel cozy in a way that vast entry foyers and soaring great rooms never accomplished. They feel intimate and somehow more genuine. And most all, they feel efficient....or at least they do when they are well designed.
I suppose this latter bit is part of my obsession. I have a knack for making efficient use of space and I find the design challenge to be great fun. And I convince myself that this is all part of homesteading, because...well...I'm making a home right? AND being environmentally sensitive because I'm trying to live in less space. So I've re-designed the space in our 70s bungalow from top to bottom 100 times to make it more efficient and I've tried to convince Gus that we should put all of these design changes into practice. Usually I'm not very successful in this endeavor, but sometimes I succeed mostly because Gus is also a sucker for efficiency and he likes renovation projects...or at least, he likes them until he starts doing them.
My most recent success in this regard was moving our laundry room. Our house has little storage space and no workshop area, and the downstairs laundry room seemed like a prime candidate for a small workshop space. Unfortunately, the available area was occupied by a sprawling washer, dryer and laundry sink. Upstairs, next to the bathroom, were three poorly utilized closets that were just begging to be converted into a main floor laundry. And so began my crusade.
It would be the perfect renovation project. It was closed off from the kids, so we could work at it at a leisurely pace. It was directly adjacent to the bathroom plumbing, so it would be easy to install the washer dryer. And think of the space savings!
We ripped apart the closets in a hurry, exposed the plumbing and then realized that easy and renovation don't go in the same sentence. The plumbing was very difficult to tie into. With much effort, Gus designed a system he thought would work and was informed by a handful of plumbers that he shouldn't try it. Get a professional and even then it won't work...water will back up into the tub. We thought about this for awhile. It didn't seem like the water should back up into the tub - not as long as the laws of physics continued to be stable. So we did it anyway.
It took a long time. Gus had to make a separate plumbing stack through the ceiling, which involved going into the attic and tunneling through the blown in insulation. He had to try multiple times to cut the pipes precisely enough that he could cram them into the small space he had to work with. While he was working I went down stairs to discover that a good chunk of the ceiling was on our bed and that it was being followed by a steady stream of water. That involved a lot of frantic patching and some tests of the strength of our marriage. Finally, the plumbing was in.
Then we had to run the electrical, gas lines for the new dryer and a new dryer vent out the roof. We wanted the laundry to be quiet so we painstakingly insulated all the walls including over the studs. Then came the dry wall. We hate drywall. There was to be absolutely no drywall in this laundry room. We got a panel alternative. We put it up. It looked like crap. We took it down and put up drywall.
We argued about flooring and whether or not to put bi-fold doors. Gus wanted to add carpet along the edges of the doors to further insulate against sound. I absolutely refused this. And then there was door jam and trim to do. Finally, we installed the washer and dryer, the laundry sink and the storage above it. Then we held our breath and did the first load of laundry. It worked! No water in the tub, nothing backing up!
The laundry room is now finally finished, two and a half years later. We made some mistakes. It is loud despite all our efforts because we did not sound insulate the floor. The joists are too narrow for the vibrating of the machine and this tends to shake the whole house when the machine is on spin cycle. And we should have sunk the dryer vent into the wall so that the washer and dryer wouldn't stick out so far....
But we love it! It is the space efficiency dream we always thought it would be. It is convenient, well organized, and now we have more space in the basement. And it only took 2 and a half years! I think we should renovate the kitchen.
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| Notice the dryer vent at the back....sigh |
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| Currently there is some laundry hanging on our nifty pull out drying rack. It drips into the laundry sink. Efficiency! |
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| A little nook for hanging the broom, mop and duster. This was a real pain to drywall, but it is nice not to bang the broom exc. when we are working at the sink. |
