Bored? Current state of global affairs got you down? Tired of not making it out of Target for under fifty bucks? Allow me to distract you with an invitation to witness my creative bipolarism with a revisit to the kids’ bathroom design. Oh, you missed my streak of genius and cunning economic wizardry? No problem, you can help yourself out by clicking here.
Okay, so what’s my current dilemma with said bathroom design? Well, it appears that I overlooked a key element: THE LAUNDRY CHUTE. How this happened I have no idea but thank you, 3AM Insomnia and white washed childhood memories for the not-so-gentle reminder. It was the early 80’s; I wanted to be Olivia Newton John in both Grease and Xanadu, leg warmers were what all the it girls had (except me) and we had just moved into our cool new yellow Colonial on Piping Rock Road. In one change of address life had gone from pretty good to great. As proof of this, the house’s main selling feature: a laundry chute. To this day I’m convinced it was what pushed my mother over rom the edge of indecision. It had to be. That, or the street name. Piping Rock. What is Piping Rock? And just what was the city planner who decided to throw that name into the pot smoking before the big street name meeting? Alas, I digress… Anyway, it (the laundry chute) was a small, square, oak door built into the wall of my brother’s room, just above the baseboard trim. That one little door was all the affirmation I needed to know that we had indeed ‘arrived’. By my eight year old standards, we were rich. Nobody I knew had such a thing. My God, what a glorious invention. Dirty clothes? Goodbye! Don’t feel like that PB&J that Mom packed for lunch? Sayonara Sucka’! And let me just go out on a limb and say that you may never comprehend the simultaneous shiver of uncertain fear peppered with absolute satisfaction that comes from hearing the muffled cries of your youngest brother who has become wedged somewhere between the first and second stories of the house. For that alone, I pity you.
So the Pinterest diving began anew. Proper planning (this is where form/function keeps me up for the next 3 months) pretty much assures the righting of my current
laundry ‘situation’. However, knowing the forces (ages 12, 10, 8, 6 and 49) working against me towards this endeavor a likely scenario it is not but hey, can’t blame a girl for trying, right?
Almost straight out of the gate I found the coolest of the cool. Thank you, Pinterest! I’m not very discerning those first few thousand hours on the site. It’s akin to going grocery shopping while hungry.
Without kids.
On a payday.
After a really good run.
I’ll take that! And that! And that! Oh yes, please, don’t mind if I do!
And hell yes, some of THAT too!
It isn’t pretty, people, is it? But I own it.
My first score was this little gem. How hard can it be to find a spare porthole lying around? This is Spain for crying out loud, port of departure for Christopher Columbus himself. 
And what kid would not fight to the death to be the first one to open that hatch for bombs away? Ne’er a dirty sock nor inside-out pair of pants to be ‘forgotten’ again! I was sold for oh, about 35 seconds, time enough to save it to my board and then instantly bemoan the fact that my stroke of genius does not come without some obvious and potentially serious pitfalls including but not limited to:
- pinched &/or broken appendages
- finger/toe prints everywhere
- the occasional dare for the boys to drop drawers, open hatch and well, you know…
So, yeah. While pretty cool this clearly was not going to work towards making my life easier. And before you comment, I do not consider children down the chute a pitfall necessarily, more maybe a rite of passage (see above circa 1982). Besides, I know my monsters well. A week tops before the novelty wears off and my porthole to cleaner living gets buried under three feet of dirty soccer uniforms. Never to be seen again.
I moved my sights up the wall. Considerably further up. Thinking back to the family mansion on Piping Rock Road, I was left scratching my head as to why the previous owner had placed the chute in a bedroom as opposed to the bathroom until I realized that my brother’s bedroom was directly above the laundry room and placing the chute in the upstairs bathroom would have meant laundry deposit directly onto the kitchen 
island (note to self: alignment). Additionally, I realized that I would have to hunt for a design big enough to fit a wad of towels but small enough to NOT fit/force a human. Oh, and placement would have to be ABOVE waist level because, well, boys.
This is the design that I’ve settled on. I love it because it met the newly invented prerequisites and I can marry it to the coolest kids’ shower in the universe. There’s obvious tweaking to be done (slightly smaller door and at least 6-12 inches higher up) but for now, I think this is it. And as a bonus, I get towel and toiletries storage though probably the inverse of this photo in hopes of the impossible: kidproofing.
Apologies for the trip down Memory Lane. I’d like to hear your thoughts on this amendment to the plan. And since dimentia appears near, what else have I forgotten?
I don’t know about you, but I have not yet realized the dream of living amongst people who bring their sweaty sports clothes down to the laundry room instead of shoving them behind the bedroom door or under their dressers, who know that making a bed involves fluffy pillows and nurse’s corners and not a pile of bed sheets twisted up into a ball at the foot of their mattress and who, when called out on the half eaten whatever wherever are man enough to own it as opposed to calling out the invisible fifth offspring known affectionately as “Not Me.”
one at a time when you can throw the girls in together (phase 1) then the boys in together (phase 2) and be done in half the time? It’s the junior high PE concept of hygiene: group showers. I reminded the husband of the timed shower spigot, which let’s face it, the savings that thing would net us from 4 kids pooping out on pumping that thing for hot water would mean that the bathroom would pay for itself within the first six months. Genius, I’m telling you, GENIUS! Why is this not standard in all houses with kids whose idea of bathing is standing under the shower head and draining the entire household of its hot water supply while never once thinking to grab the soap and lather up? To my surprise the husband thought my idea cruel and unusual (as in punishment) but given the fact that we haven’t yet broken ground, there’s still plenty of time for me to make my case.
Self-Contained Casa 