Basement Laundry, Part I: Basement Shower

The first time I laid eyes on the laundry room, I didn't even notice the laundry machine or the gas hookup or the dryer exhaust. All I saw was Basement Shower.

"Awesome! Basement Shower!" I thought to myself (or maybe said aloud to everyone). When I was little, we had a shower in the basement of our home, and when my brothers and I were particularly filthy, that's where we were sent, via the side door, direct to the basement, to hose off. In that house the shower was just mounted in the giant space that constituted the basement. There was no special Room. Here in Baltimore, I'd found a luxuriously partitioned analog to the fondly remembered basement shower of my childhood.

Then we learned more about masonry, mold, mildew, and plumbing.

(click image to enlarge)

As you may be able to tell from the picture above, the little shower in the basement is bordered by brick foundation walls on two sides. And those two sides just happen to be the corner of the basement that exhibits the worst water damage of all our below-grade masonry walls. Originally, or, rather, when the housing inspector came through, it was hypothesized that the shower was the culprit, but we now know that the water is coming in from the outside. That corner corresponds to the point at which the old gutters emptied all of the rain water from the roof. Over time, land that was once graded away from our house settled low at this point, and, for who knows how many years, the gutters have been pouring into the foundation here, soaking the wall, eroding the mortar, nourishing intrepid ivy roots (and happy mold and mildew), and probably sometimes even draining into the shower.

Add to this the fact that the dedicated laundry area of this room is tiny: maybe two feet of space from the front of the dryer to the edge of that wooden shower/toilet divider; also add the assertion from our plumber that bringing this shower up to code would be impossible, given the geometric constraints; and the result is a tidy plan for shower demolition.

But what about the toilet, you ask? It stays. For lots of reasons, but basically for any person in the basement who doesn't want to go to the second floor to use the restroom.

Our plumber demolished the shower plumbing a couple months ago and cemented the drain. Shortly thereafter I demolished the divider wall between toilet and once-shower. I also removed and trashed a few pieces of the silver-colored paneling shown in the above photograph, pieces that were rotted and mildewed. While roughing in all of the new supply and waste lines for the house, our plumber ran lines to the laundry room for a washing machine, the toilet, and a large sink to occupy some of the space where the shower once was.

A toilet has been re-installed, and the rest of the water lines remain roughed-in. We bought the new washer and dryer over a month ago. They wait, hulking, cardboard-sheathed masses, in the dining room above.

My job this week is to finish the room and clear a pathway by which to move the appliances into their forever home.

Stay tuned!