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Laundry Room location/layout questions
Would you rather have your laundry room located near the back door/mud room or near the bedrooms?
We are doing a ranch. I am not sold on split bedrooms or bedrooms all on one side - at this point, other things are more important to me and I could live with either of those options.
If we do all of the bedrooms on one end of the house, it seems like it makes sense to me to put the laundry room near them since 95% of your laundry is coming from that end of the house.
If we split the bedrooms, it seems to make the most sense to put it near the master/kitchen/mudroom/backdoor.
What would you choose? Why?
Also - where do you hang dry clothes? I will have some rod hanging space in either scenario, but not a ton of space for a drying rack for pants. Other solutions? (A huge laundry room that has space for that is not really an option with the cost per square foot. I am working with spaces that are pretty standard, about 8x11-ish.)
Re: Laundry Room location/layout questions
I'm going to be the odd one out here I'm sure:
I would prefer it by the back door mudroom. But everyone knows what kind of stuff I wash. I would not want to drag my barn/chore/garden clothes all the way back/through my bedroom. At least by the back door the mess is contained to one area. And in my ranch house, it's not that big of a deal to run a laundry basket down to the basement bedrooms or to the other end of the house.
I also have a tendency to laundry at midnight or 5am. I wouldn't want that noise near the bedrooms.
Our W/D is installed in a shallow wall indent in the laundry room, so the wall juts out a bit on each side, kwim? H just hung a rod above the W/D attached to the 2 walls. Works great and out of the way. I also just installed a hook on a nearby wall to hang stuff. Otherwise, now that it's nice I hang a ton on the line outside, so it's not an issue.
In the two different scenarios you mentioned, I agree. I don't hang dry a lot, but since our laundry room is right off the kitchen (and I do use the term 'room' loosely here), I usually hang the bigger items over a kitchen chair back. I do most of my washing over night lol.
You could do a wall-mounting rack. I've seen them on pinterest (snicker).
I obviously don't wash what Dairy (or TheWop) washes though lol. Perk of being a techie geek wife. And my washer is pretty quiet. (Dryer, not so much, but it gets run in the morning while I'm getting ready for work/leaving for work.)
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We're actually looking to build, have an offer out on a lot and should hear back today, and this is our plan. Ranch, bedrooms separated, and laundry as part of the garage entry and mudroom.
LOL. I'm just glad I'm not the odd one out.
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Back door/mud room.
I like to hang things outdoors in the nicer weather and a mud room in any home is a real plus IMO.
We have a raised ranch with all of the bedrooms on one side and our laundry in a mudroom off the kitchen. We love the set up! With everything being on one floor it's no big deal to carry the laundry 30 feet from the bedrooms to the hallway. The w/d make way too much noise for us to have them near the bedrooms (well the dryer isn't that noisy but I put dryer balls in). Besides when we are doing laundry is on the weekends when we're in the kitchen, LR, or DR so popping in to move stuff to the dryer is easy.
Our laundry room isn't that big and we can't make it any bigger without sacrificing kitchen space (not happening LOL). It's bascially a galley space with w/d one one side + a little extra space where we'll someday have built in cabinets and a closet on the other side. The room has two exterior walls; a big wall with the close on it and a short wall with the side door on it. Eventually we're going to add a big window on the big wall and put the w/d under it with water lines running through the cabinet next to the washer not in the wall. There will be a countertop over the whole length for a nice big work surface. Then the other wall will be wall-to-wall storage with sliding doors (think barn doors style only skinnier). Over the w/d we'll have a fold out ironing board on one side and a fold out drying rack on the other.
Another vote for mudroom. I like the laundry machines to be as far away from the bedrooms as possible. Our (very quiet) machines are on the other side of our bedroom closet wall and I can hear them at night when I'm trying to sleep. It's kind of annoying.
But then, you should take this with a grain of salt, because I'm one of those crazies who would put a laundry room in the basement of a 2-story house to accomplish my distance goal.
Do you have any pictures/ideas saved for fold-out drying racks? I am thinking about the best way to hang dry pants, jeans, etc - all of the fold-out racks I've seen look too delicate for pants.
Thanks for your input, everyone. I was thinking that the laundry by the mudroom made the most sense but I saw something last night that made me wonder.
The noise is a good point. I also think it's convenient to have the laundry by the back door if you want to use a clothesline.
We built a large ranch. Master suite and powder room on left wing. Dining, great room, kitchen/pantry in the middle. Mudroom has flow into kitchen and opposite flow to laundry (which is on the backside of kitchen). The right wing is comprised of kids beds w/jack Jill - laundry.
I don't want kids bedrooms next to mine - so separate wings was important to me. The laundry room has two entrances (one from mudroom and one from kids bedroom hall). It is a bit of a walk from master to laundry but hasn't bothered us - kids make more laundry anyway.
our laundry room has cabinets above sink and open shelves over dryer/washer. With a counter next to dryer for folding and a wire shelf above counter with a hanging rod.
Goid luck
Our last 2 homes had the laundry room right by the bedrooms. I liked the convenience of it, but didn't like the noise. I like to run my laundry over night but couldn't when the washer was right beside the bedroom. I like the mudroom set-up better, even if its further from the bedrooms.
We have no hanging space at all in our laundry/mud room. I hang clothes in my master closet or master bathroom.