Thank you, Green Designs. Yes, the cross bracing would help, as well as added strength of metal brackets. Any suggestions whom to hire to do this? A carpenter I should think. I realize I forgot the helpful discussion I mentioned so here it is. Here is a link that might be useful: Link:

When we go a front loader I read of problems some of them had on anything but a concrete basement floor. We had a carpeted sub floor on a crawl space with normal joists. To improve stability I merely cut a 4x8 piece of A-C grade exterior plywood to fit under both the washer and dryer. i figured it would srpeat tha weight over more joists and add stability. We had it installed over the very short napped carpet with ring nails and then put a Hardy board underlayment on both the rest of the carpet and our "island". Then we had porcelain tile installed. This has worked just as we expected and is doable and cheap.

Thanks. We thought about shelving under the windows, but in order to make a windowseat it really would have to be 18" high and probably more than 14" deep, so it doesn't help with tranistion to the bookcases on the side walls. If we went 18.5" deep we could get the outlet inside the cabinet (top would still be higher than windowseat) but really too close to floor vent which cousin says is too hard to move rigid ductwork in basement and patch the carpet. I think we'll be fine with the outlet just in front of the cabinet so we can recharge Game Boy, cell phones. We may try to put outlets on the walls behind the bookcases (full basement) but since they're exterior walls I don't know if that's going to be hard - would need 90 degree drill bit to drill through sill plate? The walls are just barely 24" so builder didn't put outlets there. Not sure if we could squeeze one on the same wall, right in the corner. I want to add another one at the next stud location so it's more behind the sofa/end table - I hate having the lamp cord trailing over to the side. Plus if we went with the windowseat we would have no place for the new loveseat we bought last summer (thinking it would be a while before we would put in windowseat). It's just in front of the slider now b/c we had the Xmas tree in the bay, and now the bay is a play area. We'll move the LS back to the bay later this year. I guess we could just do shelves and no door/drawer, put the board games in the extra-deep coat closet (when I get the French doors, short pieces of baseboard and casing out of it). But I really need drawers for pens, pencils, markers, paint pens, glue sticks, and pads/coloring books. I don't think chests or cabinets or bins on shelves would work for those. Unless I store them in my kitchen island after I get 2 new drawers in there (used a bath vanity in center of island for baking center, still trying to get Merillat to give me part number for drawer boxes that will fit - might have to do custom). Oh, and the color of the baseboard (and window trim when we put it up - Honey Maple) is pretty close to my kitchen cabinets (Oak Cider). The furniture is a mix of golden and mission oak. Do you think a floor poly or varnish (Waterlox?) would be a good choice for horizontal surfaces (vertical I'd probably do the satin poly I did the baseboards in so the sheen would match)?

Mongoct/Live Wire Oak, Thanks for the replies. Here's a photo I took right after the hot mop was done. You see it terminates at the outer half wall surface with a 'lip' maybe 1" tall (I didn't measure it so just guessing). So that centered tile in the entry sits above that and during a normal shower the water line (water that splashes over the drain to the door) doesn't go past about halfway the thickness of those half walls or doesn't go past the glass door that's centered between those half walls. So if I understand what you're saying about the capillary break, the tiler should've physically separated the thinset/mud under the entry area tile by creating a physical divider barrier to separate it from the thinset/mud under the rest of the tiles on the bathroom floor? I'm picturing a thin vertical layer of sealant (or membrane) from the bottom of the tile surface through thinset all the way through the mud down to meet the hot mop 'lip'? That would then form a barrier and force the water that gets under the tile to stay in the pan and go back towards the drain. I'm still trying to get a feel for how much water could be sitting under my bathroom floor (worst case) or if it's limited to a few areas of damp thinset due to wicking that are showing up as dark grout spots (best case?). Relative to the amount of water that seems to be making it down the drain, how much water are we talking about that could be wicking out through the thinset/mud/grout? 10%? 20%? 50%? How long does it take for the water that eventually sits on the concrete slab to evaporate or absorb into the slab itself? And what damage would this cause long term assuming the water never makes it to any wood?