Washer goes up!

windy day on the water at shore side farm house

Not much happening here at Shore Side Farm. Our washing machine "went up" as they say here on the Eastern Shore. Translation of that colloquial term would be that our washing machine has died. Pretty disappointing considering the machine is only eight years old. Of all things that could go wrong on it,  the washing tub broke. Who has ever heard of this problem before? Not me! Rusty chunks of metal tub were laying in the bottom of the porcelain washing basin, and the machine could not spin to dry the laundry. This has precipitated a whole new dilemma of how to deal with it. We would love new stacked pair of  high efficiency washer and dryer. We even went so far as to decide to make the investment in them. The problems came when we tried to find the most advantageous way of installing them.

This investigation took a lot of measuring, argument and tension.  We could not agree on which of the less than desirable layouts we would settle on. All were losers, all were worse than we had before. Can we move them to the left and get more pantry space? Do we have to move them to the right because the hookups are behind the washing machine, which was on the right? If we locate them in the middle of where they were paired up, we end up with 14 useless inches on each side of the machine that can not used efficiently for anything. The space will fill up with dust and serve no productive purpose in a house filled with useless space. No doubt about it, this house is not suited to twenty first century living. its the perfect vacation home, when you don't need to store anything but some summer clothes, but when you have a real life to live, an old house is not the place to be for 21st century living.

half laminate half plywood floor

raw flakeboard floor, and old floor exposed under washer dryer

After the machinations of layout plan, we then got to the flooring. The "laundry room" is really a kitchen pantry with hookups for the washer and dryer. Its not the best, but it isn't the worst either, at least it is behind a door. When we put laminate on the kitchen floor, we had enough laminate to cover the floor in the kitchen, but once we extended it into the laundry room/pantry we fell a bit short. There was enough flooring to go halfway under the washer dryer pair. The washer dryer pair has now been moved and the raw floor under it is exposed and cannot be left in that condition if the washer dryer are stacked. Stacking will leave raw floor, raw plywood floor. Yuck. Pretty ugly. Now in addition to the washer dryer argument, we have a flooring argument developing. I don't know what the outcome will be, but it all seems to be a lose lose situation.

 Its the same old story. It is a frustrating way to live. Every time we go to do something, the bones of the house block our desires to make life here convenient. As the song says "its still the same old story, a fight....". You get the idea. I feel like this house plots to drive us crazy and make life difficult.