Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To have just realised the dream of practical with laundry

77 replies

suddenlypanicked · 05/12/2018 09:27

Right

Bare with me.
In an imaginary very spacious home

AIBU to think a laundry room upstairs would be a brilliant idea?
So washing machine sink bla bla tumble dryer all upstairs in its own room?

Because then there would be no stairs up and down up and down with all the laundry? It would just stay upstairs?

And also I have now decided to dry my laundry all in the guest room when it's not in the tumble dryer to save me having it sprawled through the living room or hall and also not stacked in baskets in the kitchen.

Aibu to think this is a marvellous idea?

OP posts:
Librarybooksandacoconut · 05/12/2018 09:56

I have one and it’s truly brilliant. We have washing machine and dryer under a worktop with a sink plus a full height storage cupboard. When we moved in the existing bathroom was so ridiculously small that we converted one of the bedrooms into a bathroom and used the old one to make a laundry room. We have barely any outside space so we wouldn’t be hanging washing out anyway. It means that clothes can go to and from bedrooms/bathroom with minimal effort.

We also use it for nappy changing on the worktop which is so useful. You can just dump all dirty clothes in the washing machine/rinse out in the sink if needed.

We are about to move to a house with a downstairs utility room - I’m gutted to lose my laundry room!

user1495390685 · 05/12/2018 09:57

I think you'd have to design a vibration-free washing machine. Most old houses only have wooden joists for support between floors and having a washing machine on the top floor tends to make the whole house vibrate.

But as we are talking about dreams, this should be very doable!

EspressoButler · 05/12/2018 10:00

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Norfolkenchancemate · 05/12/2018 10:00

@suddenlypanicked I've had this same conversation with my husband this week! We built our house, and there are things I'd change, however, putting a laundry room downstairs is the major one, we should have put it upstairs!! I hate that we didn't use our brains and do this the first time around!

Cath2907 · 05/12/2018 10:01

In Scandinavia having your washing machine / tumble drier in the bathroom is standard. Am moving into a new cottage in a month or two and the bathroom has far more space than the kitchen for laundry so will be following the Scandy trend.

sabrinathethirtysomethingwitch · 05/12/2018 10:02

A family member has a laundry chute from upstairs to their utility room downstairs. I'm a tiny bit jealous!

namechange1984 · 05/12/2018 10:02

We put dryer/machine in the cupboard upstairs right next to the bathroom. It is a life changer

NoLeslie · 05/12/2018 10:07

I think Chango mutney's idea is wonderful. Can it have a retractable roof please for out door drying when weather is ok. In fact it could automatically sense the rain and open and close by itself .

Hideandgo · 05/12/2018 10:09

Argh. This is killing me. I’m just signing off our renovation drawings and I’ve a massive bathroom, walk-in cupboard and hot press upstairs and decent laundry room downstairs. Wish I’d looked at a laundry room upstairs but then what would I put in my laundry room space! I’ve slready got a separate walk-in larder and boot room so have no use for a utility really. I guess it will just stay as is.

fussychica · 05/12/2018 10:11

I live in a bungalow - sortedGrin

Hideandgo · 05/12/2018 10:12

Well played Fussy!

MRex · 05/12/2018 10:22

@Hideandgo - add the chute?

@BarbaraofSevillle has the best plan, add a south-facing balcony dedicated to laundry drying.

Hideandgo · 05/12/2018 10:24

MRex, I had been debating that possibility. Unfortunately the laundry room and bathroom remain in the old part of the house but still I wonder how tough it would be to crack a hole where I need it! I’ll speak to my builder!

GruffaIo · 05/12/2018 10:25

Bought a house with an upstairs laundry room. Well, not quite as there's no sink - it's just a box room with a washing machine, lino floor and drain. We like it, but have to manually lower the spin on every wash cycle to prevent the house from shaking! We use a dehumidifier to speed up drying - works really well and doesn't put the wear and tear on clothing that a drier does.

WhoGivesADamnForAFlakeyBandit · 05/12/2018 10:27

It's all very well but you're not going to be able to put the washing machine on overnight or it'll wake everyone up.

LadyPasserine · 05/12/2018 10:30

Well that’s only half of the plan, you need an upstairs laundry room which is in the centre of the floor plan, each bedroom shares a wall with the laundry room ie. on the other side. Each wall has a Shute so that when in the bedroom you bung your dirty clothes in the Shute and they land in the laundry room. Each room also has a wardrobe that opens into the laundry room so when the clothes are clean and dry they are pur directly into the wardrobe from the laundry room. Yes I’ve been dreaming of this for years.

That's still only half the plan, which means the original plan was only a quarter of my plan Mango

What we all really need is a house with eight bedrooms on the second floor and three or four bedrooms in the attic. Somewhere near the middle of the house there should be a lift shaft down to the basement. Also in the basement should be a kitchen, pantry, wash room, boot room, bike washing room, waterproof-coat-rewaxing room etc. The lift will carry the domestic staff down to the basement where they can have breakfast. At 9.00am they can go up to the third floor and pick up all the clothes off the floor and back of chairs and carry them down to the basement.

In the basement the clothes can be washed, aired and ironed. If it is a sunny day the lift can come up to the ground floor and the still wet washing can be carried out to the garden and dried. If there are eight sheets and each sheet has four pegs and the staff only bring up 31 pegs, they can return to the basement via the lift for a further peg, before returning again to the ground floor to finish hanging out the washing. If by accident they should get to the second floor before exiting at ground level they can either throw the peg out the window towards the washing line in the garden or descend with the peg to the ground floor and then make their way outside.

Once the washing has dried outside it can be brought into the middle of the house. The options then are to either immediately take the washing up in the lift from the ground floor to the second floor, returning via the lift to the basement to get the iron and ironing board, before again taking the lift up two floors to the second floor to commence pressing the garments before putting them away or taking the washing first from the ground floor to the basement to collect the iron and ironing board before elevating – this time with both the washing, iron and ironing board all together – to the second floor. There are also other possibilities.

What this is intended to demonstrate is that all these kind of problems would be solved if we simply bought bigger houses, took on some domestic staff and were prepared to think more laterally.

InfiniteVariety · 05/12/2018 10:34

My Dad & his wife had an upstairs laundry room in the 70s - you have just made me realise I have never come across this arrangement since!

theonlyKevin · 05/12/2018 10:38

I don't think it makes any difference to be honest but that's just me.

I hate washing machines in kitchen, clothes and food do not mix. If you have a small space, I much prefer the machine in the bathroom and these tend to be upstairs.
If you can have a laundry room/ utility room downstairs, it works too.

Unless you have a mansion, there's no much effort involved in taking a laundry basket up and down the stairs. Most of my laundry dries outside, I don't like to live the dryer on when I am not in the house, it feels safer to hang the clothes on the line first thing in the morning.

PurdysChocolate · 05/12/2018 10:40

When my family lived in California we had this. In the upstairs hallway there was a large closet, you retracted the pretty louvre doors and inside was the washer and drier. I was a teen and my mom did all the laundry, so I can't tell you how convenient or not it was, but I certainly enjoyed the gentle hum of the machines and the smell of fresh laundry upstairs.

We then moved to a bigger house where there was a utility room so the machines were in there.

My sister still lives in California and while her house is only one story, she too has a closet off the hallway containing her machines.

It seems a good solution for houses that aren't quite big enough to have a utility room, since back home the machines would never be in the kitchen.

LemonTT · 05/12/2018 10:40

It’s a thing and I think reasonably common in some parts of the world. Recently viewed a modern designed house where the laundry room was upstairs with room for ironing board. But no tv

I watch and iron and find it a particularly good time to watch subtitled box sets.

Knittink · 05/12/2018 10:42

Wouldn't work for me, sadly. I have bedrooms upstairs and downstairs!

IggityZiggityZoom · 05/12/2018 10:45

Most Americans have a laundry room upstairs or in older houses it's in the cellar. You'd never see a washing machine in a kitchen.

HidingFromMyKids · 05/12/2018 10:45

We have no room for a dryer and I don't even have a spare room to dry my clothes in never mind the rest of this glorious idea Sad

IggityZiggityZoom · 05/12/2018 10:49

We once lived in a house with a laundry room upstairs that was adjacent to the walk in family closet. It was utterly brilliant. One whole room kitted out with rails. You got dressed and undressed in that room only. No clothes piles to collect and carry around was bliss.

Disfordarkchocolate · 05/12/2018 10:51

@Gruffalo you can buy mats to reduce vibration that go under washing machines.

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.

This thread is closed and is no longer accepting replies. Click here to start a new thread.

Swipe left for the next trending thread