How a laundry room can be sure to work better

Why is it that dingy basement laundry room designs are the norm?

Ever since families started washing their own clothes in their own home instead of taking it out  laundry day chores have been relegated to out of the way places like the basement or the garage.

I think that good laundry room designs would at least require that the laundry center in the home would be placed close to where the dirty clothes are taken off at the end off each day! The last time I did laundry none of it came from the garage!

Laundry coordinators in every home (you know who you are) have been lugging piles of  washing to the basement or the garage for decades and I think it is time to start planning for laundry room designs that are user friendly for the entire family. The average North American family does anywhere from 7-10 loads of laundry a week so it is a chore that takes up considerable time in family life. It is time to take a look at sensible laundry room designs. Let's face it if you have to do your own washing, you will want it to be as pleasant a chore as possible. At the very least good planning should remove some of the unpleasantness that currently goes along with laundry day.

Good laundry room designs should provide for convenience for the entire  process and not just washing and drying. The entire process includes sorting, washing, drying, folding, and ironing so here is my wish list for a laundry room makeover.

• Stacked full size washer and dryer - Any space over the washer or dryer is wasted space. Even if you put shelves or cupboards up there you would have to be a gorilla to reach into them.
• Sound insulation - I might have to do laundry but I do not want to be reminded of it all the time by the noise of the machines.
• A laundry room designed just for laundry - Ever notice how laundry rooms get messy with dirty clothes and laundry hampers strewn about? My dream laundry center will be just for laundry so that I do not have to trip over other things (basketballs, runners, coats, snowsuits, galoshes etc) on laundry day.
• A laundry center close to where the "inputs" are! - Why can't the laundry center be close to the bedrooms? That's where most of the laundry comes from!  Think how much time can be saved if the trip  from the bedroom is a short one!

If laundry day has to be a part of contemporary life, it can certainly be made a lot more enjoyable by good laundry room designs.