When a Silver Spring, Maryland townhome was preparing to go to market, listing agent Piers Bocock identified an opportunity within the property: adding in-unit laundry.
The three-bedroom, end-unit townhome relied on a communal laundry space a short walk from the home. A ground-floor closet offered a potential location for a washer and dryer, but turning that idea into a functioning laundry space would require considerably more than installing two appliances.
The project would involve carpentry, electrical, plumbing, HVAC/ventilation and gas work, all coordinated within the property's pre-listing timeline.
Piers had the vision. Bluetape Solutions was brought in to determine how to execute it.
From an idea to an executable repair scope
In-unit laundry is a highly sought-after home feature. According to the National Association of Home Builders' What Home Buyers Really Want research, 86% of buyers rated a laundry room as essential or desirable, making it one of the most-wanted home features in the study.
But identifying the opportunity was only the first step.
Bluetape Field Manager Ray Williams walked the property with Piers to evaluate whether the closet could realistically support the conversion. That meant looking beyond the dimensions of a washer and dryer to understand what would be required behind the walls.
The team mapped a ventilation route from the closet through the interior and to the exterior, evaluated the electrical requirements, determined how water and gas could reach the new laundry area, considered safety requirements, and confirmed appliance dimensions.
With the feasibility established, Piers brought the proposed project to his client. Once approved, Bluetape turned the plan into one coordinated scope of work.
Five trades, one project
A closet-to-laundry conversion is a good example of why relatively compact home improvements can still become complex repair projects.
The finished space required Bluetape to reframe the closet opening, install a new breaker and electrical line for the appropriate appliance outlet, branch the water supply for the washer, branch and install a gas line, and create ventilation to the exterior.
The ventilation route also passed through a bathroom, requiring the construction of a soffit to conceal the duct while maintaining a finished appearance.
Once the infrastructure was complete, Bluetape installed the appliances selected by the homeowner and verified that the washer and dryer operated properly with the new connections.
In total, the project required five skilled trades.
Sourced independently, those trades could have meant separate contractor searches, estimates, schedules, site visits and invoices—all with dependencies between the work. Instead, Bluetape managed them as one project.
That's multi-trade consolidation in practice: the specialties remain specialized, but the responsibility for bringing them together sits with one repair company.
Built around the property's timeline
The entire project moved from the initial walkthrough to completion in seven business days.
That timeline wasn't achieved by eliminating steps from the work. Electrical, plumbing, gas, ventilation and carpentry still needed to be completed appropriately and in the correct sequence.
The difference was coordination.
Bluetape managed the project from feasibility through final appliance installation, allowing the different trades to move through one workflow rather than requiring Piers or his client to coordinate each scope independently.
The consolidated approach saved an estimated 10+ hours of administrative and project-management time compared with independently sourcing and coordinating the trades.
For Bluetape, this is what it means to be Purpose Built for Real Estate Transactions. The agent determines the timeline surrounding the property. Our responsibility is to determine how the repair or improvement work can be executed within it.
The Result: One idea, one team, one completed project
Seven business days after the initial walkthrough, an underutilized ground-floor closet had become a functional in-unit laundry space.
The project resolved the property's lack of in-unit laundry, coordinated five skilled trades through one Bluetape team and transformed Piers's idea into a completed improvement without turning it into five separate contractor projects.
As Piers described the experience:
“Bluetape lets me maximize my time. My clients keep their flexibility, and I know the job will be done right and on schedule. It feels like having an extension of my own team.”
Five trades. Seven business days. One coordinated project.
