14 Mar Where to Put Your Laundry Room in Your New Custom Home

While deciding where to put your laundry room in your new custom home is not likely the first thing you think of, it is an important consideration for your house plan.

The location of your laundry room needs to be convenient, but not too close to living areas where the noise becomes a problem. You’ll want the space to big enough for appliances and handling clothes, but not so large that it takes away from the other rooms you will want in your home.

Laundry Room Considerations:

1. Who will do the laundry? The convenience of the location may be impacted by who will be doing laundry and how it fits into their day.
2. How often will the laundry be done? The more often you will be doing laundry the more important that the laundry room be in a very accessible space in your home design.
3. When will you do the laundry? This is important given the noise that laundry will generate.
4. Where will you dry the laundry? If you plan to use a well ventilated indoor space, it may affect the design as well as the location of the room. If you plan to dry outside, you will need outdoor access from the laundry room.
5. What will you wash? If you will be washing heavily soiled kids or sports clothing, a second floor laundry in a multi-level home may not be the best idea. A first floor mud-room laundry combo with entry might be best in that case.
6. How do want your laundry room to feel? Will you laundry room be a combo use environment, like a creative space or a second kitchen? Or will it just nee to be a functional laundry room? The atmosphere of the room and its combo use may impact location and accessibility needs as well.

Laundry Room Space

Once you have determined the above questions, the size of the space for your laundry room needs will become more apparent. The space configuration may be a consideration for where you decide to put your laundry room in your house plan.

Available Utilities Considerations

It is essential to locate the laundry room near electrical and plumbing points, and to provide a venting location. Here are your main considerations:

• Electrical: All your appliances will need access to electricity, whether gas or electric. Gas dryers typically will need a 120V, 3-prong electrical outlet. Electric dryers require a 240V, 30-amp electric outlet. Washers will need a 120V, AC only, 15- or 20-amp, fused electrical outlet. All of these should have grounded, three prong electrical outlets within 4 to 6 feet of the appliances.

• Plumbing: Your clothes washer will need both hot and cold water valves that are clean and corrosive-free placed within 6 feet of the intended hookup location.
• Drain System: Washers require a drain system in the form of a floor drain, wall standpipe, floor standpipe, or a laundry tub.
• Ducting: All dryers have to duct out through an exterior wall or the roof to the outdoors. Some rigid metal ducts with no bends can extend as far as 120 feet to the outside. That said, the best practice is to keep the dryer duct as short and straight as possible.
• Gas: Natural gas dryers require a natural gas line; no liquid propane hookups are allowed.

Layout Options

The location of your laundry also depends on the intended laundry room layout.

• Galley-style laundry room layouts are long and narrow, and they use the least amount of room and work well on the other side of the kitchen walls. The downside to this type of layout is that the working room is minimal.
• L-shaped and U-shaped laundry rooms give you the greatest range of options in terms of washer and dryer location, storage, and working room. These layouts will require a wider space for the L-shaped room to accommodate an extra section of countertop and cabinets, especially for a U-shaped laundry room’s extra cabinets and countertops..

Laundry Room Location Options

A laundry room that is located too far away from living and working areas such as the kitchen is inconvenient and adds even more work to laundry day. Keep the laundry room within a realistic distance of the areas of the house where you work and relax.

Near the Kitchen

If your desire is to put the laundry room near the kitchen there are pros and cons. Locating the laundry near the kitchen will allow you to keep an eye on laundry while working in the kitchen on other things. On the other hand, carrying laundry to and from bedrooms, bathrooms and linen closets may be a chore. Laundry noise adjacent to the kitchen may also not be desirable, depending on when you tend to manage the laundry.

Mudroom / Family Entrance Laundry Room

Sweaty, muddy, wet kids and or sports clothing can be easily managed without tracking through the house in this arrangement. In this case you might also want to include a shower in the mud room. This also often can work as space for your pets as well. The downside of this location is that pets and clean laundry don’t always mix well and likely this location will be far from bedroom, and linen closets.

Laundry Near the Bedrooms

A space near the bedrooms and bathrooms minimizes the carrying of laundry and puts it near where dressing and undressing takes place. The atmosphere would feel like part of the home and not just a utility space. On the other hand, if you have the sort of laundry noted in the Mudroom / Family Entrance option, dirty laundry might be messy in this portion of your home. Another concern would be noise of running laundry at night if you tend to do laundry at that time of the day.

Laundry Out of the Way

In larger custom homes, this might be an area geared towards home maintenance away from the living areas. It might also be adjacent to or a portion of the garage area. The downside of this option would be the distance required for carrying laundry to and from the rest of the home.

Interested in Discussing these Options with Our Team?

You can view examples of some of our laundry room designs in our blog post titled, “ELEGANT, EFFICIENT, ENJOYABLE LAUNDRY ROOM & MUD ROOMS.”

Interested in seeing more of our luxury home building work? See Custom Homes Gallery and our Gallery of Rooms for a deeper look at our work at Devonshire Custom Homes.

Request an appointment to work with our team at Devonshire Custom Homes to plan a laundry room that best suits your lifestyle, habits and needs as well as the rest of your custom home design project.