When searching for a house, it’s easy to focus so much on the kitchen, bedrooms and outdoor space, that you don’t think about the laundry room. Consider how various arrangements could affect your day-to-day lifestyle.
Size Matters
A laundry room with space for a washer, dryer, table and shelves, plus enough floor space for a few hampers, could make handling laundry easy. With a smaller room, messes are inevitable, plus you will likely have to sort through and fold laundry in other parts of the house.
Location is Key
Having a washer and dryer in the kitchen or in an adjacent room could be convenient, as you would be able to do laundry without leaving the main living area or taking your eyes off your kids for too long. If the bedrooms are upstairs, you would have to carry hampers up and down. Noise from a washer and dryer could be distracting and it might be hard to find a clean place to fold laundry in the kitchen.
A laundry room in the basement could keep the mess and noise away from the main living area, but it would also mean lots of trips up and down the stairs. With the washer and dryer in the basement, you might not hear a buzzer indicating that a load was finished and you could forget about it.
With a laundry room off the master bedroom, you wouldn’t have to travel far to wash your clothes and then put them away. An out-of-the-way laundry room could be convenient when you have guests, but it could also be a hassle if you had to walk up and down the stairs several times or forgot about the laundry because you were busy downstairs.
A laundry room in a mudroom could make it easy to wash dirty clothes immediately. This option might be particularly appealing if you have kids. If the mudroom is right next to the main entrance, though, guests could walk in and see piles of dirty laundry. You would also be taking clean clothes out of the washer and dryer in a space that could get very dirty, very easily.
A laundry area in a hallway closet could be convenient. If the closet is near the bedrooms, you wouldn’t have to carry laundry far. On the other hand, having laundry machines in a busy hallway could result in traffic jams, noise could be a nuisance and you might have to carry laundry somewhere else to fold it.
Focus on the Laundry Room When House Hunting
The laundry room may not seem as important as other parts of a house, but its size and location can make life easy or create a major hassle. Think about these pros and cons and your family’s lifestyle when shopping for your new home.
