Give your laundry a makeover

Above all else, your laundry needs to be practical – it needs to contain all the right elements to allow you to do what you need to, and it needs to be designed so that there’s ample room for you to work, bend and shift around where you need to.

What’s normally included in a laundry

The first step in planning a laundry renovation is to understand what needs to go into it.

The ‘standard’ laundry needs to accommodate:

• a washing machine (obviously)
• a dryer, if you need one
• adequate plumbing
• power outlets
• a laundry trough (or sink or basin, if that’s what you call it)
• enough storage space for linen and cleaning products
• possibly a bench, and
• Possibly a (often overlooked) broom cupboard.

Where possible, when you're renovating your laundry it's best to try and keep your appliances and plumbing all together on one wall - both to help save space, and to keep all the plumbing together.

Likewise, when you're planning your storage, you'll need to take into account how 'safe' that storage is. Laundry chemicals and cleaning products can be quite dangerous, and if you've got small kids it's best to make sure you've got somewhere inaccessible to store them.

The exact dimensions you'll need to allow for appliances and sinks / troughs will depend on how hard up you are for space, but as a rough guide you'll need to plan for about 800mm width for your washer, or 1600mm if it's going to be side-by-side with a dryer. Most washing machines and dryers will fit comfortably into this amount of space but if you're likely to need a larger one you should design accordingly.

If you take your laundry far too seriously and if you have enough space, you may also want to incorporate a built-in ironing board, or a table.

In some houses the hot water tank will also be housed in the laundry area - usually tucked out of sight in a cupboard. The best time to update or relocate your hot water system is while you are renovating your home.

To keep plumbing to a minimum and for the sake of energy efficiency, laundries are usually also located somewhere near your hot water system, and for the same reason, possibly close to your kitchen and perhaps also a bathroom - both of which also require a fair bit of plumbing.

European laundries (or 'laundry cupboards')

There’s no hard and fast rule about how laundry areas should be laid out – or even rules about the need for dedicated laundry rooms. In the UK, it’s very common to see laundries incorporated into kitchens to save space. While that’s rare in Australia, laundries here are sometimes combined with bathrooms, which also makes sense in plumbing terms.

Our houses are usually quite a bit bigger in Australia compared to Europe or the US, so most of the time there’ll be a dedicated laundry room – typically with the features listed above but very rarely with much else.

In recent years, ‘European laundries’ have taken off here in a big way – particularly in flats, units and apartments. A ‘European laundry’ is a kind of laundry cupboard or cabinet, rather than a dedicated laundry room. European laundries incorporate all of the things you’d normally find in a laundry (e.g. space for washer, dryer, basin and storage), tucked into a cupboard.

The biggest advantage with this kind of setup is that it ‘borrows’ space from the room it’s connected to, rather than sacrificing precious floor space exclusively for the purpose of doing laundry. Laundry cupboards usually incorporate either bifold doors or a sliding ‘pocket door’, which disappears into the wall cavity to further save space. Likewise, clothes dryers are often mounted above washing machines in these areas.

With the rise in popularity of the walk-in butler’s pantry, I have done renovations whereby the existing laundry becomes a walk in pantry and we create a ‘European’ laundry cupboard.

Not for everyone, but definitely a good idea if you’re short on space, and (potentially) a fantastic way to renovate two rooms into one more open area.

Technical Considerations

There are also a technical things that will need to be taken into account for the design of your laundry. Because a laundry is considered a 'wet area', the wall and floor construction will need to adhere to the rules set out in the Australian Standard AS3740-201 - Waterproofing of domestic wet areas. This standard also requires that a water-resistant surface material (e.g. tiles) be built at least 150mm above the surface of the laundry trough.

Electrical outlets also need to be positioned in accordance with the Australian Wiring Rules (AS3000:2007).  Adequate ventilation is also very important. If you have a dryer, it should be vented directly, preferably to the outside of your home. Where possible an exhaust fan in the laundry may also help to prevent moisture / humidity from building up and reduce the chance that you'll end up with mould on your walls.

For the sake of safety comfort and good design, it’s best to contact and speak to a renovation expert like us to ensure your laundry renovation is done correctly.