Guide to Laundry Room Placement for Your Custom Home
December 29, 2017No home is complete without its very own laundry room. Having to go to a laundromat every time you need to wash your clothes is not only time consuming, but also very expensive in the long run. All those visits will quickly add up!
As it is something that all family members must share, placing a laundry room is important. Making it easily accessible to everyone makes the chore of cleaning clothes easier, and so here are some things to keep in mind when determining laundry room placement:
Laundry Chutes for Lower-Level Laundry
Laundry chutes are incredibly useful. You can install them in several rooms so you can easily slide your dirty clothing down towards the laundry room. This keeps you from having to trudge up and down the stairs to get all your clothing to the washing machine.
If you would like to make use of these, keep them in mind when deciding where your laundry room should go. After all, they won’t be of any use if you put the laundry room on the upper floors of your house! If you want to save yourself the trouble of extra lifting, then laundry chutes are the way to go. If you choose them, the basement or bottom level floor is the best laundry placement for optimum use.
Consider Traffic Flow
Laundry chutes are certainly helpful for getting your dirty clothing down the stairs and out of your room as soon as possible. However, they don’t help much with bringing the clothing back up.
That’s why it’s important to take into account the traffic of your home. Where are all the bedrooms located? Where does everyone have to travel in order to reach the laundry room? You want to centralize the laundry room as much as you possibly can.
Of course, it’s nearly impossible to do so perfectly. In some cases, the difference in labor coming to and from would still be diminished by the use of chutes for lower-level laundry; however, that is highly dependent on each individual house and its layout.
Second-Floor Laundry Room
In other cases, a second-floor laundry room might be the best option. These are becoming more common as, for many families, they make the most sense. In fact, they’re one of the popular custom home design ideas. With a laundry room on a higher level, however, you want to take extra precautions to prevent any potential water damage from mishaps with washers.
Washer overflows or a washer leak are all important concerns for a laundry room on any floor of your house, but they can be particularly damaging when a laundry room is located on the second floor. With precautions in place, like a washer drip ban and recessed washer box with shut-off valves, you can enjoy your second-floor laundry room without worry.
Carefully Evaluate Often-Used Rooms
Some homeowners take the path of making a multipurpose room by putting the laundry room alongside a high-traffic room. Popular choices for this method are kitchens, bathrooms, and mudrooms. As these are hubs people will frequent, they will have plenty of opportunities to clean their clothing and not have to do any extra running around.
Beware of Dust, Lint, Noise, and Clutter
Though it saves on space and may seem like a good idea at the time, you may want to reconsider. Not only will pile of dirty laundry be hanging out in these frequented places, but you also introduce a large source of humidity, dust, and lint into the room.
Oftentimes, the laundry room becomes a dedicated room attached to or aside from these other rooms. Although this can reduce the amount of dust and link that travels into other rooms, it will not eliminate it or reduce noise from laundry appliances.
So, you may want to rethink placing your laundry room in or just off of your kitchen or bathroom. Depending on the size and layout of your mudroom, it could be an option. However, mudrooms are usually located at a point of entry, which means people may end up stumbling over laundry hazards while entering or exiting.
Master Bedroom
Another option could be a dedicated laundry room off the master bedroom. This would certainly make doing laundry more efficient. However, it also introduces something often seen as a chore into your bedroom. This increases the amount of dust, lint, and humidity in your master bedroom while adding extra noise and potentially clutter.
Laundry room placement matters. Though it may be tempting to put it in or just off from a high-trafficked room, it would likely work better as a dedicated room in the same hallway. This way, it would be nearby without the added allergens, noise, or clutter.
The perfect laundry room placement for you will depend on several factors. Consider these things and more to find the perfect solution for your custom home.