What lurks behind that mysterious pocket door in the kitchen?
HURL. It’s the laundry room.
Oh yeah. It’s FUGLY.
These are old pics from a few years ago and it’s only gotten worse if you can imagine.
With my new and improved Google Sketchup powers (thanks all for the great tips! I’m starting to get the hang of this shit) I built out the laundry room as it currently is. This is the view from the kitchen! The room is only 9′ x 9′ and houses the washer and dryer (in ODD locations), a utility sink, shower, closet and toilet cubicle as well as the secondary breaker box.
Here is a view from above.
Now for the tour. To the right you’ll see the 3′ wide toilet “poopicle”, then squeeze on by the dryer on the left that is installed through and on an exterior door, the utility sink is on your left if you can once again squeeze by the dryer sticking out in the middle of the room. The washing machine is on your right and then there is the tiny musty shower with a shower head installed at about 4′ high and a ceiling that’s at about 6′. Just a wee bit claustrophobic and almost impossible to wash your hair.
There is a huge closet though…
Here you can see the breaker box on the wall of the toilet poopicle and the dryer wedged into the defunct doorway. The Brick House was rigged up this way when we moved and it’s been on my “priority list” for when we somehow run into a big pile of money. I’m not even sure how to slap lipstick on this pig so I’ve just left it, with the awesome teal paint and plastic tiles falling off the walls.
Ohhhh x-ray vision.
Look at that huge closet. Guess whose going to get turned into a shower! And here is that little cramped and useless second shower. Only used in the direst of emergencies.
My mission is this: With my new found sketchup power I’m going to stop ignoring this beast and get going on a plan of action. My questions for you are these…
-We have one FULL bathroom. Should I keep the shower and just remake it so it’s usable? Or is it weird to have a big shower off your kitchen totally far away from the rest of the house?
-Stackable or side by side laundry? Pros and cons?
-The sink may have to go. Is it weird to have a toilet, shower and NO sink off the kitchen?
-How the hell do you brick up that stupid door? Should it get turned into an exterior door again? Or a giant window?
This whole room is one giant clusterf*ck. No wonder we’ve been ignoring it.
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40 Comments
Ok…Buy a stackable and redo the closet for laundry. Remove the laundry sink and replace it with a regular bathroom sink, maybe a vessel sink. Whatever you do, do not remove the bathroom. You will benefit greatly if somehow you can keep the three piece bath for resale value. Good luck!
can you move the breaker box? if that could be moved to a main wall, you could knock down the poopsicle walls, opening up the room significantly. remove closet, expand shower into that space, squaring it off, so it’s a rectangle with door opening toward current location of dryer. shift sink under window, put stackable w/d on the wall where door is (facing shower), with cabinetry/shelving around it, along the entire wall (use the space between stack and sink wall for tall cupboard for broom, etc.) i’d brick up the door completely, since you have two other windows in the room. get a smaller sink, but keep it. i can’t imagine not having a sink of some kind in there. depending on how you build new shower, maybe you could put sink on the wall of the shower, or in the corner where shower meets window?
I’d get a stackable, put them where the sink is now and conceal them in some kind of cabinet. With the sink under the window you’ve got a clear path through the space and the view from the kitchen is blank cabinetry. Keep the shower and toilet with whatever kind of cosmetic improvements will make them bearable. Definitely keep the door and put in a washing line outside (even if it’s retractable so that you can hide it) dryers suck so much unnecessary electricity.
Incredible sketchuppin’! You are blessed with both patience and skill. good for you!
Ok, I’m officialy blaming you for starting a Google Sketchup of our entire house. Just for fun. Fun?!????
You’re probs going to have to keep the sink or at least keep a sink. Most building codes require a separate sink if you have a toilet (i.e. you couldn’t count the kitchen sink as the sink for washing up from the toilet).
Reconfigure but keep the bath. It is a selling point and definitely helpful for resale, even if it isn’t something you love. Ditch the utility sink and install something with a small footprint.
Doorway. I’ll tell you what I did. In our sunroom, we had an exterior door that had been paneled over after taking off all moldings (they actually ran the cable right through the screen door and door). This area was going to be turned into a powder room to have a toilet on the main floor. What we ended up doing is ripping out the paneling and drywalling over the door. You can see the door from the outside, but not from the inside. It worked for us on several levels: kept the historical look on the exterior (100 yr old house), meant we didn’t have to do more stucco work, and it was an unnecessary door.
Ohhhh! We want to turn our laundry room into a laundry/bathroom and this tells me they do exist! Our water heater is in our laundry room and we “hope” to get tankless water heaters to free up more space. And maybe, just maybe, we will splurge and get front loaders that we can stack for more space.
And Google Sketch up is awesome. I haven’t figured out how to use it yet, but I believe you have inspired me!
Nice sketching! Sounds like they’ve said it all….sadly, that breaker box is screwing you in that location. Probs not cheap to move, but it will open up so much. For resale, if you had a tub/shower combo with a handheld shower attachment, you and future owners could bathe dogs and/or rugrats. Sink of some sort must exist. If you kept the exterior access, mudroom/shower config. would work well. Where in the yard does that door take you?
Okay, I’m going to point you to another blog I’m addicted to:
http://www.younghouselove.com/
People write to them with design dilemmas, and they construct mood boards and new layouts for the room. I’m curious to see what they would suggest for a mid-century laundry room.
My own two cents… Ditch the prison shower. I have a similar one in my basement, and no one uses it. It isn’t even suitable for guests. Since your water hookup is in that area, put a stackable washer/dryer where the shower currently is. Then you can still have a useable closet until your budget allows you to replace it with a shower. Since you have a toilet, you need to keep the sink. However, you could build a long table to put along the wall where the washer currently is, and have a hinged drop leaf part that covers the sink. Then you’ll have a laundry table, and when you need to wash your hands, you can just fold the hinged part out of the way. As for the door, I would be hesitant to turn it into a window or exterior door. You’ll have condensation like woah. Brick it up. Maybe even get some brick veneer for the entire wall. Bright white subway tile would also look crazy awesome.
That was more like five cents, but you get the idea.
i love these kind of challenges! especially when it’s all pretend money, and we can just suggest stuff without any limitations! ha
i love the idea of a mudroom – with the exterior door being kept and used. the utility sink is great in this kind of room – but maybe you could get a stainless one that is more kitchen looking – so that it’s not odd to wash your hands in there after using the poopicle. is this where you wash out your paint brushes and stuff?
i like the idea of getting rid of the shower, but in resale… it helps to say you have another full bath… hmmm
where there is a toilet, there really should be a sink. i would get rid of the shower, i’d rather have more space…resale value be damned. the stackable laundry might work better here space-wise. def can put where the old shower is. a fold down wood countertop might be nice too. that way the unfolded laundry has a place to stay until you have depleted it.
i highly recommend making that exterior door usable again…full frame glass if you can swing it. having access to the bath/laundry from outside without tracking through the house is a great idea. you can also put a laundry clothesline right outside.
i’m jealous. my laundry is right next to the stove in the kitchen. now THAT was genius.
My advice: get an electrician over for a quote to see about moving the electrical panel. Usually it’s expensive, but sometimes, it’s not so bad. Depends on where all the wires are coming from and how much slack you have. If you can move that thing there’s a whole world of possibility that opens up – a mudroom/laundry room and a separate full bath, or a nice big laundry / bath combo.
Dividing it up into 2 separate spaces would get rid of the “bathroom right off the kitchen” feel that nobody likes, since the bathroom would be off the mudroom instead (though hard to say without a scaled floor plan if that will really work).
So I think it’s worth just calling an electrician, just to see what they have to say.
Where does the door open to? Is it in a location that would be convenient to a backyard swimming pool or hot-tub? An outdoor shower next to that door and a full bathroom/laundry would be very useful if it was close to a pool.
So much potential, so much money…
Google Sketch Up is HOT!!
We have a washer/dryer all-in-one unit, for a family of four, and we LOVE it. It takes up little space, is energy efficient, and you don’t need a vent for it as it doesn’t spew hot air. (It condenses the water out of the clothes.) Ours is an LG. My favorite thing about it is the timer, I can put in a load of dirty clothes and tell it what time I want it to be finished. When I come home from work, Viola! A clean, dry load of clothes.
I’d keep the work sink and get rid of the shower. A work sink is good for crazy messy DIY projects, bathing the dog, etc. A tiny shower??? Not so much.
I’d try to keep the exterior door working.
I second the mudroom idea. I would move the washer dryer to where to toilet is now, build a teak or other hardwood “shower curtain” where the sink and washer are now. If you’re going to have a shower in a mudroom, I’d want to make it feel like an outdoor shower. Not really sure about the toilet.
I think that you should only keep the shower if you re-open the door to the outside. It was obviously put in as a utility shower, so that you didn’t have to tramp through the whole house dripping mud/sweat/etc. along the way after you were out in the garage or yard working. If there is no outdoor access then it loses utility. Its kind of an outdated idea, but you do are doing a lot of work outside, so it could be useful. I think that in your climate, and with your aesthetic you could just install a cool outdoor shower instead to serve that purpose.
I think keeping the sink and toilet as a powder room for visitors seems like a useful idea, but I would reconfigure it so that you enter into a laundry room with (possible) outdoor access from the kitchen, and then enter into the powder room. That way the toilet isn’t right off the kitchen.
Definitely awesome sketch-up skills.
Do you have a photo of the painting that is partially shown in the old laundry room pics? All I can see are fingertips, and they are tickling my curiosity.
Simple solution, put a stackable W/D at where the toilet is right now, and bring the wall back to suit the depth of the washer/dryer. Get a new sink and have the toilet in b/t where the sink and the shower is right now. You may even have a built in counter or storage space at where the washer and dryer used to be. minimum tearing and reconfiguring, but it’ll make a huge difference.
Don’t Fret girl, you have just enough space.
Very impressive – both your scetches and the task ahead !
One thing is bugging me though : why do you need a dryer if you live in a desert ? Don”t you airdry your clothes ?
OMG, that room is frakked!
Ditch the shower. Resale is all well and good but you need to live there too and that room is not working with a shower in it.
As tempting as it is to suggest putting the W/D where the toilet currently sits – moving a major waste line (and other plumbing since you’d also have to move the hookups for the W/D) is a bitch and pricey probably not worth it for you in this space. I would, however, spend the money on moving the electrical panel (will probably run between $800-$1500 depending on contractor and conditions).
I can’t think of other suggestions right now. My brain breaks when I look at that room.
Do people really air dry their clothes? Seriously? That would take 857 years.
Not a design point, but a mudroom in Southern California (with the exception of historical Craftsman and Victorian homes) is unusual. Not much call for a mudroom in the desert.
These are my two points:
I do not need a mud room. I will not air dry my clothes – it’s way too dusty and thats a PITA.
Oh, also – I’d rather not move every single plumbing line. Seems crazy expensive.
love the sketch up work. i blame impending time suck sketching our house, on you.
keep the bath! so useful to have 2, regardless of ugliness. I would move sink to right, just under window, stack in place of old sink position (or get one of those nifty 2-in-1s that AMDD speaks about). Open the door for drying line. I grew up in L.A. and seriously takes like 15 mins to hang dry in the summer. I plan to install a line as soon as I get my ass in gear to landscape the backyard so it’s not a giant stray cat box anymore.
oh. seems like we’re typing @ same time. OK- no air drying for you. gotcha. no need to move plumbing lines I don’t think though with some of these simpler suggestions.
I grew up in the desert, without a dryer. Line-drying all of your clothes is a major pain in the ass. However it was nice for some clothes when the wind wasn’t blowing. Sheets dried in the summer on the line were so nice. But imagine line drying all of your dark clothes and the sun bleaches the color out of them so fast. Not fun. Also, try line drying in winter. Clothes NEVER got dry.
I second the opinion that you should keep the bathroom/shower. It’s good for resale but it’s never a bad idea to have another bathroom. I told my agent I only wanted to see houses with at least two bathrooms – and since someone built an extra one on my house at some point (definitely not original to my 50′s house), it was a sticking point that I’m glad I made. The bad thing is that it’s basically off of my kitchen/dining room (like yours, sort of). But I have made it really nice for guests and we had a shower to use during the remodeling of the “main” bathroom. It is also right next to an outside backyard door which is great because people don’t have to trek all over my house when they need to use the facilities – they go in the side door and right into the bathroom.
Sorry, long comment.
not related to this post really, but when you’re ready to take a well deserved little break, here’s a dreamy piece:
http://www.dinosaursandrobots.com/2010/03/venini-drop-light-c-1930.html
1. I’m completely addicted to sketch up now, thank you very much.
2. I have a phobia of toilets being attached to kitchens and the shower just makes no sense unless you need some sort of emergency chemical hose down action.
3. This is going to be a VERY rewarding project. Can’t wait to see it as it goes!
For resale value’s sake, 2 full baths sound good. BUT, given the location/layout, it’s not pretty having to go thru the laundry room to access the 2nd full bathroom…
If you want the full bath, I would recommend reconfiguring that area so that the bathroom with shower would have its own entrance off the kitchen area (you can do it, takes some clever and efficient layout planning and carving out niches, but it’s do-able… only downfall is that it may require moving some plumbing and electrical and that can get costly).
If you want to keep it cheap, I recommend:
1) getting rid of the shower
2) making that toilet room into a powder room by installing a compact/efficiency sink in the room and locating a door off the kitchen area
3) locating washer and dryer next to each other (more space available since shower’s gone)
4) keep the utility sink. every house needs one.
5) put in some storage/closets since you will have all that extra space
The only thing I would add to all these great comments (seriously, I need all of you at the condo I recently bought) is to warn against a stackable w/d. They’re very expensive and, since they’re one unit, if only the washer goes out but the dryer still works fine, you still have to buy a whole new unit. The stackable w/d went out before I bought my condo and I replaced it with space-saver washer and dryer units (both units fit into the same spot [washer on bottom and dryer installed on top] as the stackable without any modifications to the space). They work great and, if only the washer were to go out, I only have to replace the washer [since they're separate units] and avoid the cost associated with a stackable unit. Plus, the dryer vent is so small that you actually vent it to a small bucket that you put water in. It doesn’t have to be vented outside, which may give you so more options for that door. Good luck!
Okay, I think what I would do (mainly because I am cheap) is to turn the toilet to face the current shower. This would allow you to maintain the existing waste drain. I am assuming that you are on a slab foundation or better a crawl space. Moving a waste drain is VERY expensive on a slab. The shower becomes a deep sink sharing a small (36″ narrow room) with the toilet. The access would be approximately where the current closet is. The old poopicle door becomes either a replacement closet or shelving. This allows you to hopefully keep the current panel position. The washer moves to where the utility sink is and the dryer scoots to where the current washer is. The original outside entrance is reinstated. We did undercounter washer and dryer and love it. If you did this it would give you a nice clean look. Then a small cabinet overhead to the left of the window.
If you felt the you could not live without the shower, keep it (reworked) in the toilet compartment, do a stackable washer/dryer and switch with the utility sink. That way you can maintain light. Phew. Glad I could get that out.
I am currently rendering my first house in sketchup and feel that you did a commendable job. I find that it is way too easy to go eraser happy and I end up peeling back the damn walls like an onion.
we have a stackable washer/dryer set and i really wish we had side-by-side front loaders so we could put a counter on top of them and use it for folding, flat drying sweaters, etc. (like this: http://www.houseandhome.com/files/imagecache/gallery-image/_D8K7276_SUP_HH_Feb09.basements.jpg). i would also vote for keeping the utility sink if you think you’d use it for things like washing paint brushes or gardening tools. can’t hurt to get a smaller one though.
it would appear that the link doesn’t work, and since i’m totally inept i don’t know how to solve that problem. if you google “ikea laundry” you’ll get some good images. here’s another one just in case it works this time: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_qD35N0b91JI/SXcyvVXCv5I/AAAAAAAAARk/FhfWeDUYxU8/s320/design+inc.+daryl%27s+laundry2.jpg
where in the house is this located? is the exterior door leading to your patio / firepit outside? I would keep it as a bathroom as bathrooms are huge selling points.
I’m probably in the minority, but I hate stackable machines and think they should only be used where space restrictions make them necessary – having to bend down over and over again to move heavy wet laundry from the washer up to the dryer *sucks.*
Great laundry rooms are one of life’s biggest pleasures (I would die for one.) Put the dryer where the sink is so the machines are next to each other. Tear out the shower, put a big counter for folding with lots of cabinet space underneath it along that entire wall, with a sink where the shower is (your plumbing is in the right place already!) Hang some upper cabinets above it if you want, or go for open shelving.
Keep the door. doors to outside are nice.
I think you should consider expanding the poopicule to double the current width and adding a small sink inside it. Put a pocket door on it so you don’t have swing out issues.
This of course would eliminate the closet.
I say remove the shower completely and use the space for storage. I guess perhaps you could tile the poopicle entirely and turn it into an open shower room if you really wanted to keep a second shower for resale value.
Lose the utility sink and put a stacking washer/dryer in it’s space.
Result: the poopicle becomes a *half bath*, more storage than the current closet, navigable room!
Also, here in Australia EVERYONE line dries their clothing. It’s considered indulgent and wasteful to own a dryer. I’ve even heard of dryers equated to hummers in terms of indulgence!
That said, it’s sunny like whoa here and it takes about 20 minutes for everything to dry.
What you’ve drawn up is impressive and a good use of the space. A million times better than how it looks and functions now. No biggie not having counter space in that bathroom, you can use the kitchen bar counter for folding laundry.
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