Small Home Gazette, Fall 2024

Creative Solutions: Hidden, Accessible Drain Pipe

The style of the new hutch in the basement bedroom was based on built-in bookcases on either side of the fireplace in the bungalow’s upstairs living room.

Finishing old basements always comes with the challenge of how to configure the rooms to accommodate a home’s existing internal workings for heating and cooling, electrical, and plumbing. After Tony and Kaline Marinello finished their bungalow’s basement last year, they were left with a problem of how to hide the drain line from their main floor kitchen that now ran through their new basement bedroom.

The basement bedroom had an unsightly intrusion: a drain pipe running from the kitchen above into the basement floor.

They wanted to hide the pipe yet still provide access for future drain cleaning. Plus, they wanted to gain as much storage space as possible for the small bedroom. Their solution was a beautiful oak built-in hutch, designed and built by Kaline’s father, a finish carpenter. The upper shelf unit has trim wide enough to frame around the pipe. The lower cabinet drawers are a facade of symmetry.

Kaline’s father came up with a clever solution: build the hutch around the pipe. He then created narrower left-side drawers with full-width fronts to hide the gap—and the pipe.

The lefthand drawer boxes are about three quarters as wide as the righthand drawer’s. The drawer fronts (or faces) are the same width as the right side. This preserves the symmetry of the upper bookshelf and provides the illusion of a full drawer. The drawers on the left pull all the way out to provide access to the drainpipe for any future plumbing needs.

The built-in matches the bookshelves that flank their living room fireplace to maintain the bungalow charm.

Other Examples?

If you know of other creative solutions to make bungalows more livable, send them to us at mail@bungalowclub.net. Whether they save space; provide modern convenience with an historically-appropriate appearance; or simply make the best of a difficult situation, we would love to share them in a future issue.