Designing the Perfect Laundry Room

Laundry is an essential part of running your household. An efficient laundry room can really contribute to laundry moving efficiently through your house, even with a busy schedule and messy family members. When every hamper is perfectly placed and your laundry system is down to a science, you can make sure everyone has clean towels and fresh clothes all week, every week.

Of course, it's surprising how many homes neglect laundry room design. You might not even have a laundry room, just hookups in the garage or in a tiny nook off the kitchen. If you're ready to fix that oversight and build yourself the laundry room your household deserves, so are we. Today, Edesia is here to walk through designing the perfect laundry room.

Laundry Room Design Essentials

Size and Location of the Machines
Workspace for Folding and Treating
Laundry Sink for Stains and Handwashing
Storage for Laundry Supplies Above
Storage for Hampers Below
Extra Storage for Linens
Closet Bar for Hangers

The perfect laundry room has a few essentials that you will build into your ideal space. Most laundry rooms are just the right size for one person to quickly process one load of laundry into the washer and out of the dryer at the same time, spot-treating and folding as you go. To do this, however, requires a fair amount of forethought and design. You need a place for everything, and for everything to naturally fall into place during the weekly chaos that is household laundry.

Choose Your Laundry Room Layout

Start with your layout. Choose the area where you will build or improve your laundry room. You might finish an area of your garage or basement, extend your kitchen, or simply rebuild the existing laundry room to better suit your purposes.

Take your space and map out the floorplan. Use a floorplanner app or, if your space is empty, place tape on the floor to show where your machines will go, where your counters and cabinets will go, and how it will all contribute to your ideal laundry room workflow.

Pick Your Machines

It isn't a laundry room without a washer and dryer, but you have a lot of options based on the space you're working with and your preferred workflow. You can have a large washer and large dryer, a smaller stacked washer and dryer, or even a combo washer-dryer. Do your research and choose the washer-dryer combo that works best for you, then add them to your floorplan design and build the rest of your laundry room around them.

Pro Tip: Keep an eye on which direction the doors open. With some units, you can also re-hang the door to open the opposite way for greater convenience in your specific space.

Design a Countertop and Give Yourself a Sink

Your laundry workbench will really matter when it comes to both pre-treating laundry and folding straight out of the dryer. The best countertops in a laundry room typically have open storage below for hampers instead of closed cabinets, so consider either a sectioned supporting frame or floating countertop design. Natural stone is a great choice if you reseal it every three years, while artificial countertops give you even more design and color options.

From there, give yourself a sink, the deeper the better. A deep laundry sink has so many uses. It's the perfect place for handwash loads, but also for cleaning up any large mess, baby and pet baths, mop water, and science projects; a deep laundry sink is always worth piping in a new location.

Storage Above and Below

Finally, build your laundry storage. Use the space below your counters for full hampers and empty basket storage. Above your countertops and machines, use open shelves or cabinetry - your stylistic choice - for laundry supplies and cleaning chemicals that you want to keep out of reach.

From there, depending on your space, you can start adding extras. Set aside two to five feet of upper cabinet space for a closet bar so you can hang clothes straight out of the dryer. An additional tall cabinet for linen storage can free up your current linen closet while making loads of sheets and blankets much faster to process.