We are making progress in the mud room/laundry room. Over the weekend we decided that we wanted it to be a single larger room, vice two small rooms. That way we don’t have to decide right now where the division between the laundry room and mud room will be. If in the future we want a wall, we can always add a wall.

I have the insulation in, the wiring and plumbing done, the subfloor installed and the walls cleaned up from old nails and lath. Tomorrow (hopefully) the drywall contractor will show up, and we should have walls done by the weekend. Our next step will be to pick out a hardwood floor and new lights for the space. I’m hoping that the next picture will be of a much closer to completed room.

It is nice to have a long weekend off of work. Three days is nice. Four is great. I get to get lots done and still have time to relax and enjoy myself.

Yesterday I finished the subfloor and did some cleaning. Today I tackled the plumbing. I roughed in the washing machine and sink drains as well as added the water connections for the sink and drain. The new plumbing is PEX, hooked to a manifold in the basement – but there is no water to the manifold yet. I’ll get the water hooked up this week. But at least the piping is put into the laundry room.

The plumbing is (sort of) on an exterior wall. There is an unheated enclosed porch on the other side of the wall, so I will insulate the pipes – Susanna helped me insulate the two pipes going to the sink after the picture was taken. I need more piping insulation for the other pipes – but it is a quick job.

I was able to make more progress in the mudroom/laundry room today.

First I removed the flooring. All four layers. The top two layers (plywood and linoleum) went into the trash. The next layer (original flooring) and the subflooring went into the fire pit. Even the boys helped by removing debris. Not that they volunteered, but they didn’t complain too much either.

Next I repaired two damaged joists. The two joists that had been next to the chimney had suffered from some water damage. I removed the framing that had gone around the chimney and added a sister joist to both of the rotted joists.

I cleaned up the remnants of the old flooring and added a new subfloor. Now to decide if I like where the new floor will line up with the door thresholds. I may add another 1/4″ subfloor, but haven’t decided yet.

It is Thanksgiving. The weather outside is typical for a New England November day; cold, overcast and wet. A perfect day to take it easy and hang out inside and relax.

Or work on projects for a bit before heading over to visit family for the afternoon.

We are making progress on the mud room. This week I hung the drywall on the ceiling. We are planning on contracting out the drywall work, but with the old lath and plaster ceiling, I decided to hang the ceiling early to help keep the dirt level down in the house.

This morning I started attacking the floor. I started removing three levels of floor, getting one end of the room back to the original subfloor. I’ll probably remove the entire subfloor and replace it – it will make sistering the two joists on the north side of the room easier. Plus, that will allow us to do a full thickness (3/4″) floor and have it the correct level.

Susanna even headed down to the basement to work on the second window sash. The “Silent Paint Remover” does wonders, and the windows are looking good.

We had to remove the trim around all the doors and windows so we could tear down all the plaster and lath in the mud room/laundry room. We are replacing the plaster with drywall. Apparently I wasn’t careful enough removing the trim around the window in the laundry room, and the window frame came apart when I pulled off the trim.

These are original double hung windows. The frame had come apart where the wood was thin – the dado where the parting bead was installed. We decided to glue the frame back together instead of trying to duplicate the piece in the workshop. I also had to repair the upper jamb which also broke in half.

To clamp the frame up, I needed to take the storm window out. That would mean the house needs to be open to the outside for a couple of hours, or I would have to install a plastic sheet on the exterior to cover the window. However, today the temperatures soared into the upper 50s and the sun was out. No problem leaving the storm window out for a couple of hours.

First I removed the upper sash. It was really stuck, and I cracked one pane of glass getting it out. Then I removed the upper jamb and pulled the nails out. I used some thick epoxy to do the repair. I replaced the upper jamb with a piece of 2×8 framing lumber that I cut down to size.  Once the epoxy had cured enough to no longer need clamps, I reinstalled the storm window. Now to scrape the paint off and wait for Susanna to finish the window sashes.