Laundry room dream (or reality) design

[maytagbear]

Where is your daily driver laundry room?
What do you like about it? What don't you like about it?

In the prior two apartments, it was in an alcove off the kitchen...handy, but not in the way. I could have baskets or piles of wash and not have to look at them/it.

This apartment, my washer and dryer are between the bathroom and the stove (hard to explain).

Where are yours? If you're lucky enough to have a collection, and that's your daily driver laundry area, great!

I really love the POD that shows up once in a while, "The Electric Laundry" with the dryer cater-corner from the washer, and cabinets, and a sink..... and windows!

I would love the sink I used to have, at the house. Yes, it was a basement laundry room, but it had the marvellous cement sinks..great for washing a Cocker Spaniel or a canning kettle. (No, I did not use Tide when I bathed Dolley!

Sink! Cabinets! Countertops! Shelves! Main floor location! Variable lighting!

So, please tell me your ideal laundry room, and of course, add pictures, if you know how, and if you want to.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[toggleswitch]

It's leaking!

I'd start with a floor drain (un-heard of in my area).

In newer homes the heating vents are on the floor. Those would move up to the wall, as it's an accident waiting to happen..

 

[danemodsandy]

Mine's Too Cramped and Narrow

Mine's about five feet by ten. The Maytags are on one short wall, and there's a counter running along one long wall. Cabinets below and above the counter. There's a eensy-weensy bar sink that was somebody's idea of a laundry sink. The other long wall has about five feet of that wire shelving mounted high, for hanging space, and there are two rows of the shelving above the Maytags. Two doors and one window. It's actually not bad by today's standards, but my dream laundry room is quite a bit different...

It would be about twelve or fourteen feet square. There would be one entire wall of closets for off-season storage. There would be two deep honest-to-Pete laundry sinks (for soaking) next to a pair of Maytag 906's. Counter space would be adjacent to the washer, hanging space adjacent to the dryer. There would be cabinet space for laundry supplies and the like. Room would have to be made for an Ironrite 95 roll ironer, an ironing table, and an ironing board. Cabinets above these would hold pressing equipment and shoe stuff (polish, etc.). There would also be space for sorting bins (whites, colors, darks, etc.)

The floor would be Armstrong Excelon tile, and there would be a floor drain. Everything would be built for lasting sturdiness, with aluminium mouldings on the edges of counters, etc. Nothing in it would be there for "cutesy" or for looks.

 

[petek]

The laundry room in this house is pretty good. It's about 18 ft long by 7ft wide with a door into the garage on the right side and oddly two doors and a window on the opposing wall out onto the back deck, why 2 doors I haven't figured out. I could fit at least 4 maybe 5 washers along the one wall LOL. No floor drain here either. There is a laundry sink on the right way down at the end on the right beside the washer, then that rack with all the coats hanging on it then have our chest freezer in there as well. The room itself comes off the mainfloor family/sunroom. Those awful plastic curtains covering the shelves have to go, eventually I hope to find some decent cabinets at Habitat for Humanities ReStore cheap.
In front of the dryer is Parkers eating/drinking spot where he spends many hours lazying around and guarding the food bag from Ben. The room looks worse in this picture than it actually is for some reason, the lighting maybe

 

[dalangdon]

Our laundry room isn't really a room - it's an area on the way to the rec room in the basement. We're planning on some fairly tame redecorating here in the fairly near future (some new paint, etc) but for now it is what it is.

Just outside to the right of this picture is the GE Wall mount refrigerator, and just to the left is the Maytag ironing machine and the Coldspot.

FWIW, our machines are somewhat unusually arranged, but not to fear; When the tankless went in, we couldn't use the machines on the pedestals because of clearence issues. So we bolted the two pedestals together to form a storage unit, and the dryer is bolted to the top of the pedestals. It really works nicely when folding or transfering from machine to machine.

 

[exploder3211]

Ours is a closet off the Kitchen (see my other thread).. I actually really like it there. Very handy and out of the way. Plus its not hard to get in/out of

 

[hoover1060]

Of the basement family room

The only thing I am lacking is a laundry sink, but even thats not so bad because I have a powder room right around the corner.
The thing I like best(aside from the maytag A608) is the shelf with a place to hang stuff, so it comes right out of the dryer and onto hangers. I'm not much for folding, so anything that makes that easier I am all for!

 

[aquarius1984]

Stacked washer and dryer, convinient but im not sure if I prefer side by side.

No sink because I dont handwash... and if I do its in the kitchen sink or on a wool cycle in the washer.
Mum used to have a sink in her utility til we ripped it out 6 years ago, no one used it and dirty jobs can be done at the outside tap.

Nick

 

[glamwales]

The smallest in S Wales

Here is mine

 

[rp2813]

My new Duets are in my attached garage. I'm with you Lawrence, I wish I had a concrete sink. Even a porcelain janitor type sink would be better than the white PVC one I ended up with, but since the sink is where the washer drains and time was an issue, I just replaced the funky old PVC sink with a new one. Easy enough to change out if I ever come across an old concrete one that I could use.

I wouldn't mind having a laundry room inside the house, but with my old Amana pair, the racket the dryer made (like it was drying a load of Tinker Toys) would have driven me and my partner crazy. As it was, we could hear it through the living room wall and even all the way in the back of the house while it was running in the garage. With my new Duet pair we don't hear a thing--after 9+ years with the Amana I had forgotten how quiet a dryer could be. Duets would be great machines for an indoor application.

I see more and more modern homes or remodels of two story homes where the laundry room is upstairs where all the bedrooms are located. This makes great sense since that's where everybody's dirty clothes end up. I'll probably never live in a two-story home--my partner isn't a big fan of stairs--but if I did, I think I'd like that arrangement.

 

[toggleswitch]

Neil/Glamwales. It appears that the hot and cold taps are separate. Is it so? I haven't seen that here (including that type of stopper) except in the oldest most classic of loos (bathrooms).

 

[washoholic]

I think this is the picture you’re talking about, Lawrence.

What I’ve noticed about most new homes in Texas is that the washer & dryer are farthest from the bedrooms and off of the kitchen. The laundry would have to be taken through the family room and kitchen. Not the best idea.

In most new home the kitchen is open to the family room, but the stove or cook-top always seems to put the cook's back to everyone. The sink is usually located so that standing at it puts you facing the family room. It seems like the stove or cook-top should be where the sink is located. Don’t people spend more time in front of the stove than in front of the sink? Do that many people wash dishes in the sink? Then again, I guess a lot of prep work is done at the sink, right?

The attic seems to be where they’re putting the water heater these days. Not smart considering that at some point it’s going to leak. I hope these new homeowners remember to keep the overflow drain on the emergency pan free of debris or they could have a flood.

 

[washoholic]

My laundry room is a small hallway at the bottom of the steps between the foyer and the garage, next to the half bath with 2 doors at either end (one to the garage & the other to the foyer). Then there’s a small closet in the laundry room that houses the water heater. I like the location.

 

[polkanut]

When we remodeled our home (built in 1925), we decided to bring the washer and dryer upstairs. We had an enclosed front porch that we never used, and turned it into our laundry room. We have a '98 Maytag that still has a suds-saver, so we had to bring the suds-tub up as well. On the east end is a walk-in closet with shelves from top to bottom. On the west end we have a window with cupboards on both sides, and a huge roll-out laundry hamper underneath built out of solid red oak with a med. cherry stain. The only drawback is it's in the front of the house, and just off the living room, oh well.

 

[JerseyMike]

Until she downsized, one of my cousins had a pretty cool lau

She lived in Boca Raton, FL at the time. The way her house was designed, EVERYONE entered and exited the house through the laundry room. (I don't think that I ever saw anyone use the front door in all the years that she lived in that house.) You also had to go through the laundry room to get to and from the garage. The laundry room also led to the family room.

The room was very large (by laundry room standards); it was about 9' by 12'. The washer and dryer (and laundry tub) were on the one wall that didn't have any doors on it. She had Maytag 806 Washer. The dryer was a lower end Maytag. There were overhead cabinets above the washer, dryer and laundry tub.

She had a built in ironing board. That was next to the garage door. There was enough space so that one could iron and not block the garage door.

There were base cabinets (plenty of folding room), a full size window that flooded the room with natural light, and a closet next to the outside door. These were all opposite the washer and dryer.

There were wire shelves (at shoulder height) next to the door to the family room. These provided extra storage space and a place to hang stuff the couldn't go into the dryer. (At the time, her homeowners' association banned clotheslines; I've since read (don't ask me where) that Florida passed a law that prohibited homeowners' associations from banning clotheslines.)

The coolest thing about the room was the wallpaper. It was intalled by the prior owners of the house. My cousin and her husband liked it so much that they never changed it. (I admit that it was tired looking by the time my cousin moved.) It was beige and it said in brown script -- over and over -- "Ellen hates the laundry room!". It must have been custom made. (Even though my cousin's name isn't Ellen, they decided to keep it.) It was a great conversation piece.

My cousin hardly hated that room. She loves to iron, so she spent a lot of time in there. She even had a small TV (connected to cable) on the counter where she folded laundry.

(The laundry room in their current house, is this tiny windowless room. It's upstairs near the bedrooms. She's still using the GE laundry equiptment that was installed by the builder. She's talking about putting in Duets.)

Mike

 

[glamwales]

Toggleswitch

Indeed the taps are seperate. One for hot one for cold. Very common in the UK. As for the plug , again this is the most common type of fittings in the UK .

 

[pulsator]

My laundryroom is big, full of machines, but no where near as nice as those "dream laundryrooms"!!

http://www.automaticwasher.org/cgi-bin/00ShowCollectionGETD.cgi?photoshow=71@The%20laundryroom%20as%20it%20is%[email protected]&dir=/COLLECTIONS/PULSATOR/

 

[whirlcool]

In most of our houses we have had nice laundry rooms. The last one was a walk thru affair that was between the kitchen and the door to the garage. Terazzo floors with overhead cabinets that matched the kitchen cabinets and complete with under cabinet lighting.
Now this house is much smaller and we only have a closet in the kitchen which barely fits our WP TL Washer and accompanying dryer.
Our set up is kinda rare, most houses in this subdivision have their laundry room in the garage with the automobiles.
I wish we had room for vintage machines. There is a bathroom adjacent to the back of the garage wall, it wouldn't take much to run water and drain lines, or even a laundry sink to a place where a vintage set could be installed.
Most of the homes we have had up north came with laundry sinks where the washer emptied into. Down here in this part of the country I have never seen this set up.
I guess it all is attributed to regional tastes!