Not only was the paint peeling badly, but some of the wood was coming apart:

LOTS of sanding, priming and painting, and "new" knobs (left over from some long-forgotten piece of cabinet or something) she ended up looking like this:

And here it is in its "new" habitat!

So here's a before and after shot, kinda tickled with the way it turned out!

It's a shame I can't get the color to really show, it's the same color that was used on the front porch, and really adds a little pop to the laundry room.  Anyway, here's a final view from another angle:

With that, that's the end of the great basement re-do of the winter.  Had no idea it would take all winter AND spring!  So the next post will be a recap of the project...time to get working outside!

So I got started on it, and here it is all primed up:

I decided to give the inside some color, so I used the paint from the front porch..

And some white from the front porch, and here it is in its new habitat...

One thing (kinda) off the punch list!

Not a great shot, but that's one of the few "before" pics I had (one of these days I'll get better about that).  The peg board did well, worked fine, then I did this...

That was all part of the basement remodel, you can read more about that here.  Well, this time I decided there'd be more peg board...LOTS more!  Here's the outside of the workshop...kinda came out almost exactly as it was before:

But the real difference is inside the shop!  

I made two entire walls of the shop peg board! But there's a couple other things to notice...see that shelf unit?  That was a rickety old thing that was in the laundry room for years.  If you touched it just wrong, the whole thing nearly fell apart.  What did I do?  Screws all over it, and even screwed it to the wall!  The other thing is the shelf that runs over the top.  I fitted the shelves so they fit between the studs...no wasted inches here!  And here's a shot of the finished product (I'll have to take some shots of the workbench wall after that gets cleaned up):

So outside of the workshop just needing a good cleaning, one box on the punch list checked off!

I realize some people would think it best that the paint be sanded off the brick, that it would give the room a nice rustic look, but let's be honest...the laundry room at 173 is anything but rustic, unless of course you mean rustic in the "rough hewn" sense! So we painted it with the Drylok.  One little devil done - and geeze, what a difference!

Then there was this little devil.  See the circuit box just hanging there?  Believe-it-or-not I've been dreading getting that affixed to the new wall.  Don't ask me why, I have no idea! 

Quite silly really!  It was neither hard, complicated, expensive (I used scrap 2x4's and piece of an old shelf) nor time consuming (what?  Maybe half an hour?).  Anyway, now it's done, except for the painting (ugh!).

So here's a shot of just some of the devils on the punch list:

1.  Posts and (some) pipes need to be scraped and painted.

2.  There are just two small portions of ceiling to go in, one of which seems complicated.

That's just a couple things on the list.

The upside is a couple more things are done, a: the new cement board wall has been painted, and b: as I just said, the chimney is painted!  Just for fun I pointed out just a few of the tools required for this project.  We're getting there!

So I figured I would soffet around them.  Here's the basic framing:

Then it was just a matter of some 1x6's:

After that, it was ceiling time.  Of course I started with the grid...

Lemme tell you something, it's a fairly small room and it wasn't real hard to do, but if I never put in another drop ceiling it'll be too soon!  Then came the tiles...

Next is a wider shot.  Things are going pretty fast now, so some of the flaws you see in this shot will be finished off soon.  

On to the punch list!

For $6 I also picked up a set of casters to make for ease of use, you know - that whole...getting older thing. The whole little project took about 15 minutes!  Next time I have the paint out I'll paint the front of the pallet. 

So there's a little project Made at 173.  

I used Tapcon bolts and my hammer drill to fix the sole plates to the concrete floor, then just cut cut cut.  So here it is...I don't know why the picture makes it look like the studs are out of alignment, but believe me - this is the only plumb and square wall at 173!  

And from the laundry room side...

Then it was time to put up the sheet rock.  I decided to go with 1/2" Hardiebacker cement board.  Even though the basement at 173 is dry and there's not been any mold...I figured what the hey!  Besides, it came in 3'x5' sheets which meant I could get it home in my car, that was probably the real reason!  So here's a fun little thing...part of the wall runs behind the hot water heater with about 2" of space behind and on the side.  There was no way in hell I was going to get my hand, let alone my drill in that little space...

Well, as it turns out, a bunch of years ago I found this really long Phillips head screwdriver on the ground in a parking lot.  I've had it in the workshop ever since and had never had a need to use it - until now.  To get screws in that cement board behind the water heater, I taped the screws to the screwdriver, and they went right in!

It took about two hours, but here it is - the new laundry room wall!

Another shot...

Still a long way to go to wrap up this project, but it's coming along and I think, somewhere out there I think I see a little flicker of light at the other end of the tunnel!

The painting is finally done...

...so I moved onto the plumbing.  I figured the plumbing was going to remain exposed, so I thought I'd give the quick connect fittings a shot.  Man!  those things are expensive, but they worked like a charm!  I added some wood blocks for support (and yes, they'll be painted), and strapped the hell out of the pipes.

And here's a wider shot...

The funny thing is, even though those quick connect fittings work great, it still took me an entire day to put it all together.  I had it all figured out one way, got half way through assembling it, and decided on another layout I thought would work better.  I wanted to be able to shut off the laundry water supply and the sink water supply separately, so it took forever.  In the end, I think it was well worth it. Of course the whole drain system for the sink had to be done too, but that was all PVC - much easier to work with!  So after two week without a washer and dryer, we can finally do some laundry (and just in time - the underwear drawer was running on empty!)!

Just a couple things to note - we got the big sink!  I don't know why that was so important to me, but I wanted the big one!  And when I was shopping for the faucet I wanted one with the long neck and a sprayer. I just happened (just happened - HA!) to be at Lowes and I found this one on clearance for $40.  I think the normal price was around $60 or $70, so I was a little tickled - my mother would be proud!  In the picture above there's a pail under the P-trap, that's just for a little while 'til we're sure it won't leak.

So there it is...the laundry room is well on it's way, just need to build another wall, fix the concrete next to the cold cellar door, and install a ceiling!  And the work continues...

See that lone, hanging light bulb?  Besides the window, that's the only light in the room.  And here's a shot the other way:

Not much better huh?  So this weekend I dove in.  Part of the problem was deciding what order to do things in.  Well, nothing could get done until the appliances were out of the way.  For that, and for the first time ever, 173 has a hand truck, I suppose that was going to happen eventually, I'm just not getting any younger. Moving the washer and dryer revealed a shocking mess!

Look at this will ya??!!

Enough of that...the loose concrete had to come off, and I removed some of the old plumbing.

The spot under the window was alarming!  I kept tapping and more concrete just kept falling out.  I was beginning to worry I was going to see snow!  But it did eventually stop, check it out:

Anyway, moving on...here it is all cleaned up.  You can actually start to see the nice tile we laid back in '99.

Then up went the cement:

After the cement went up, the next step was to finish the wall, in a sense.  See that arrow?  That points at a 4" gap from the top of the wall to the joists above.  

Hey!  There's the new hand truck, my new best buddy!  So, that's how the weekend ended...pretty satisfied with the progress up to this point!