Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures of this in-progress. I mentioned a couple of posts ago that I had built a square frame for the riser using pocket holes. A couple days later, I bought another 2×4 and added some joists in the frame. Over the weekend, we brought home a cut-down sheet of 1/2” plywood for the platform base.
The first thing I needed to do was cut the plywood to the precise size. In the end, it was a pretty pathetic result. Trying to cut such a long length with a circular saw resulted in me skewing the angles. This means the platform doesn’t sit square on the base. I decided I would live with it. It’s more of a utility platform and not a piece of the house.
Then I used some wood putty to fill in screw heads and smooth the front of the platform. The result of that effort wasn’t all that attractive either. So I’ve kind of written off this whole project as a learning experience. But in the end, the platform accomplished exactly what I wanted it to. It raised the dryer so that its exhaust port is almost perfectly level with the vent port. You can see how close I was able to get the dryer to the wall. If you look closely at the corner of the riser, you can see how poorly I made the cut – 1/4” at least. That’s why I squared up the front and put my crappy cuts to the back.
And getting the washer and dryer up onto the platform and against the wall returned a lot of space, just as expected. The washer and dryer used to extend beyond the door frame. Now, you can walk through the area without feeling like you’re going to run in to anything.
