Hey guys!! Happy Wednesday! Thanks for all of the love on the laundry room reveal! Hands down the most popular question was about moving the water hook ups for the washer, so lets dive into it shall we?
When we unstacked the washer and dryer my first reaction was a swear word. I mean, I was thrilled with the new found space but surprised at how high the water lines were. Isn’t that the way that it always is when you tackle something new?!
Water lines that are too high are a massive eyesore and tackling something that is so unfamiliar can seem overwhelming. I totally get it.
My first reaction was to find a way to hide the box.
Should we put the washer and dryer on pedestals?
Could we build a cupboard door?
Or have a removable tile insert?
What about building up a wood backsplash instead of using tile?
How about a really great plant?
Ultimately though, to get the look that I wanted the lines just had to go.
I jumped online to see if it was even legal to move water hook up lines (because I don’t know, what if there are some crazy rules about it?!)
Everything that I found about height said that they can be as low or high as you prefer, as long as they are not lower than the highest water level in your washer. The great thing about that is front loaders don’t fill up all of the way so it wasn’t really a concern. But even installed at the new level it is still higher than the water level could ever reach so we were good.
The first step was to cut away some of the sheet rock to see what types of pipe we were dealing with. Our house is about 12 years old, so I knew it wasn’t going to be a very hairy situation.
Court just used a utility knife to do this. If I were doing it myself I probably would have used a steak knife, isn’t that what kitchen utensils are for? Spatulas for stirring paint etc….
The hoses are standard flexible plastic. We decided to replace the washing machine outlet box to make things easier, so we took the measurement for the pipe and went on a quick date to Home Depot. The replacement box was about $40 and was so easy to use!
After I decided on the countertop height, we trimmed the plastic pipes and attached the new box. (They just push onto the pipe, its so easy!)
Once the hoses were connected Court attached the box to the studs and install was done. All in all it too about 20 minutes.
The last step for this project was to patch the hole in the drywall. Because we were putting up concrete board for the tile, we just filled it in with sheetrock and didn’t worry about patching it more than that. (Sorry I don’t have a pic of just the drywall patch without the countertop!)
Pep talk time. If you have waterlines that are making you crazy, moving them is SO SIMPLE. Don’t be scared, just do it!
Don’t miss any of the other projects in this series!
Awesome! Thanks. I have this project in my future so pinned this!
What if you develope a leak and you can’t access the hose turn offs? I don’t know how much you use your machines, but we turn off the water between uses to take the pressure off these hoses as they are prone to bursting.
I have the same fear regarding not being able to access the shutoffs in an emergency, though I’ve never heard of shutting the water off between every wash before.
It looks so much better now! Too high water lines really annoy the eye. Thanks for sharing this awesome idea with us!
HAHAHAHAHA – steak knife! I can totally relate to that and … yup … all the spatulas get sacrificed to paint stirring eventually. It’s nice to know I’m not the only one. 🙂
What do you do if your pipe on on the outside of the wall as in my laundry room? They are really obstructing a creative and useful area for the appliances and storage. I would love to add a picture of the room here. But there’s no place to attach one. 🙁
I’m so glad i’m not the only one that stares at stupid water hookups. Could you pretend that you couldn’t move yours and write about possible ways to hide/camouflage them? I don’t live with a Court that would make that happen for me and there is no way I would attempt doing all that. Pretty please with sugar on top?!?!
Great tips – thank you for posting.
From the photos I can’t see if you still have the drain pipe in your replacement box. It looks like you don’t but that can’t be right can it?
Hey Simon!
It just wasn’t installed when I took the pictures but its there now!
Great question!
xo
m