Framing the Laundry/Mudroom

I always love it when a lot of framing gets done. It's such tangible evidence of progress. Today, the framer worked on the new opening for the 10' wide sliding glass patio doors:

Before:After:

Next, he demoed the existing wall where the outdoor fireplace was and started removing the outside header and roof rafters (dry rot, unfortunately):

We also talked about all the little storage niches, which I think are going to be very fun, as well as functional. It's good to be on site to help make these decisions and it's good to have a responsive crew that wants to give you what you want! Here are some problems that we discussed today:

1. Where to place gas fireplace: centered on the wall or off to one side
2. How to frame around the fireplace to maximize storage niches
3. Where to put Guest Bath storage niche
4. Framing the Laundry/Mudroom window so there's enough room on sides for the trim
5. Adding storage niche to Laundry/Mudroom

I suppose all of these things could be/should be on the plan, but let's face it. Things change. And it's kinda fun to design on the fly. Of course, you can't change anything structural! That would require refiling with the Building Dept.

Speaking of giving you what you want, I mentioned to Ruben a leak in the non-working, rat's nest of a sprinkler system. I was going to borrow the Sawzall and cut away the leaky join plus all the other extraneous pipes. But he beat me to the punch. I came back from lunch with the kids and it was all taken care of.

Before, you can see the 3 sprinkler controls, plus additional pipes running into the garage and back out:
After: Now, the hose is connected directly to the hose bib. Should be fairly straightforward removing the remaining 3 pvc pipes sticking out.