In the laundry room, I used some ready-to-assemble cabinets from Home Depot, and some off-the-shelf laminate counter top from Rona that I had them cut at the store.

The sink came with a template, so I traced that onto the countertop with a sharpie, use a hole saw on the edge to start it off, and then cut out the shape with a jigsaw.

Almost constantly, the box stores have different promotions going on (eg, I bought the cabinets during a 10% off all kitchen cabinets sale), and I’ve tried to take advantage of these as much as I can. I went to get a sink during one such event, but it was out of stock, and I was at the point I actually needed one, so I ended up buying a much more expensive 10″ deep sink (most are 7″), but in hindsight this is a much better sink to use for the laundry room so I’m actually glad it worked out this way.

While doing the final hookups, I was again reminded why I like PEX so much. It took me maybe a bit more thna 5 minutes to crimp on all the valves, and probably 45 minutes driving time for the $8 tool rental (ok that slightly annoys me, but it likely would have taken longer to it with copper, especially when you factor in draining basically the entire house, which is unnecessary with PEX). All the vales are PEX 1/4 turn stainless ball vales, except the toilet which is a more traditional valve which looks a bit nicer.

On the laundry room, it’s probably worth showing the in-wall washing machine hookup, which worked out quite nicely. Now that I have the flooring in, I replaced the old rubber hoses with some stainless braided hoses. You can see an old photo with the plumbing exposed here.

I bought everything for the bathroom on sale almost a year ago, and have been storing it in the crawlspace since then. As it turns out I’ve seen the cabinet on sale since, but it was still more expensive than what I paid. The toilet is a dual-flush, and otherwise your typical round toilet.

Having the small cabinet (24″ x 12″) works well - the sink is large enough, but with the cabinet itself being smaller, it gives a bit more floor space, and makes the room feel a bit bigger. Since the bathroom is only 5×5′, this is important. I should also mention that Jocelyn has helped with the bathroom a lot: picking out and installing the toilet paper roll, mirror, and toilet seat.

Check out an old post on doing the bathroom rough-in for details of all the plumbing.

Lately, I’ve spent a lot of boring time painting (though Jocelyn has helped me a lot with painting), cutting, installing, and wood filling trim (and still have some more to go). I’ve been coming to the conclusion that I am not a fan of finishing work.

I’ve been borrowing Jocelyn’s dad’s mitre saw almost since I started this project, but I’ve used it so much that I decided it was time to buy my own. After looking at several, I settled on a Craftsman 10″ sliding compound mitre saw. There were three of these that almost looked identical, but differed in price by about $130. The people at Sears could not tell me the difference, other than one, which was ~$250 CDN, has arms that extend out from the base, so that’s what I ended up buying. So far, I’ve been quite happy with it and would recommend it without hesitation. The laser is pretty accurate, and the positive miter stops make doing the different angles for trim very easy.

I put laminate flooring in the laundry and bathrooms, because it’s relatively inexpensive and easy to maintain. Though I’ve never installed it before, it’s pretty straight-forward (and as such, I didn’t take very many pictures, I’m realizing now).

I put a basic foam underlay in first. Even though this is a basement, I already have a sub-floor that acts as a vapour/moisture-barrier, so I didn’t need the fancier (and more expensive) underlay that also does those jobs. If you are installing laminate floor directly on the slab, there are some neat products out there.

I started on one side of the room, and used a compound miter saw to cut the boards to length. With only a 10″ non-sliding saw, I could only cut about 75% of the way through a board, and then had to turn it around to make the rest of the cut, but this was not a big deal at all. I used a table saw I’m borrowing from a friend to cut the final pieces length-wise on the opposite wall from where I started.

For the closet in the bathroom, I used an 8mm tile edge strip. This gives a nice metal edge, which just slightly overlaps the laminate and protects the edge of the laminate.


The laminate ended about halfway through the laundry room closet door, which wasn’t quite enough. I only needed another inch or so, which wouldn’t have been very strong with laminate. I used a special transition strip to end it, which matches almost perfectly, and made up the extra distance.

For the transition from the laundry room and bathrooms to the rest of the basement (which will be carpet) I’ll likely be using a vinyl strip that snaps into a metal track attached to the floor (I can’t remember the name, but it’s very common). The strips have metal teeth that the carpet attaches to, and don’t go underneath the laminate at all, so I’ll install them later with the carpet, when I know what color it will be.

There is a floor drain in the laundry room, which I wanted to provide access to. I used a 3″ holesaw and some careful measurements to cut a hole for it, and right now I’m just using a standard floor drain cover. It doesn’t look bad, but I’d have no problems using something else for the cover if I can find something that would work.

It’s definitely starting to look closed to finished now.