Laundry Rooms Clean Up

By Nancy K. Crevier

One of the more vivid memories I have as a little girl is the day that Sears Roebuck delivered our washing machine and dryer. I was 7 years old and that year we had moved from a tiny apartment in our tiny town to a duplex that had not only a main floor and an upstairs, but a basement, as well.

Up until then, Saturday afternoons my mother would load all three of us girls in to the back of her Chevy along with several baskets of dirty clothes and head off to the local laundromat. It was an adventure for three little girls, begging for popcorn and soda that spurted into tall paper cups from vending machines, racing the laundry carts from one end of the laundromat to the other, reading comic books, and otherwise amusing ourselves while our mother patiently washed and folded a week’s worth of clothing and bedding. No doubt it was far less of an adventure for her.

But now, we had a basement. And that meant that there was a space for a washing machine and dryer.

The huge, white Sears delivery truck pulled up early one morning and two burly guys wrestled the boxes from back, up our sidewalk, and through the narrow doorways. Ducking to avoid smacking their heads on the low, overhanging shelf in the basement stairwell — and not always missing — the men grappled the unwieldy boxes down the steps and into the corner of the dimly lit room.

I remember that the setup involved some strong language and a lot of hoses going in and out of the deep galvanized steel sinks placed near the washer, but at last, the shiny white machines were settled in place, the two-foot-tall complimentary box of Sears detergent conveniently placed nearby.

My mother spent that afternoon poring over the manuals, and by 6 pm our first load of laundry was swishing about in the machine, the steady chug, chug, chug as the basket churned a sound that would from then on be a part of our home life.

Doing laundry at home involved a lot of time in that basement room. It was not a lovely room, by any means. At most, the usable area measured 8 by 8 feet. The poured concrete floor was uneven and damp, the ceiling low, with dark beams exposed and threaded with enormous spider webs. Two incandescent bulbs cast a yellow pall over the scene and shadows leaped from behind a furnace that roared to life periodically, the rich smell of burning oil sometimes leaking out. Occasionally one of the hoses slipped from the sink and regurgitated sudsy water all over the floor, requiring us to hastily remove the many cardboard boxes of miscellaneous items stacked from floor to ceiling along the adjacent wall.

A few lucky families boasted a washer and dryer on the main level of their home, often tucked into a corner of the kitchen or in the entryway, but the basement “laundry rooms” in other homes in town were just as dismal as ours. They were simply functional. A washing machine located where the occasional bubbling over would not cause long-term damage was seen as practical, and because having a home laundry was still novel for many, no one gave much thought to the aesthetics.

Not so anymore. The laundry room has come of age.

Folding Spaces And Countertops

“Anybody who is upgrading thinks about upgrading their laundry room now,” said Bruce Goulart of Goulart Construction in Newtown. “It used to be that you would put a washer and dryer side by side in a closet. Now people want a bigger room with higher-end cabinetry, a folding space, and maybe Corian countertops,” he said. If the laundry room is adjacent to the kitchen, said Mr Goulart, often customers will request the same cabinetry and counter treatment as in the kitchen.

It is the increased square footage overall of new homes that allows people to enlarge the laundry room, he said, and even use it as a multipurpose area.

Along with high-end cabinetry, Mr Goulart’s clients look for top-efficiency washers and dryers. “Laundry chutes are making a comeback, too,” he has noticed. “People realize how handy it is to have a chute that they can throw clothes into on the upper floors and have it ready to go in the laundry room.”

Nor are all laundry rooms located in the bowels of a home any longer, said Mr Goulart. “The laundry room is not just an afterthought. Where people want [a laundry room] depends on where they ‘live.’ The main level or the upper level of a home is likely to be selected for a laundry room in modern homes.”

If there is any trend in laundry rooms, said Kim Danziger of Danziger Homes, it is that most people now want the laundry room near the bedrooms. When the bedrooms are upstairs, there are always concerns about washers leaking. Special lipped drain pans that drain into the home’s plumbing system are a must when the washer is not in the basement. “But if a hose lets go, there’s no drain that will help,” Mr Danziger warned.

The wash room has grown over the years, too, he said, with the smallest he has built lately being about 6 feet by 12 feet, and many much larger. “The laundry room is always with a tile floor for durability, and a nice, large window is often requested.”

Danziger Homes has experimented with adding sewing areas and other functional modifications to the laundry room, but no matter how pleasant the room is, by and large, Mr Danziger finds that his clients still want to “get out of the laundry room.”

Multitasking

Michael Lobuglio, a member of the American Institute of Architects, designs homes from his own place on Longview Heights in Newtown. He has seen laundry rooms evolve from dreary addendums to well-thought-out additions to a home.

The biggest trend he has noticed is a request for two washers and two dryers in a home. “A lot of my clients also go for the front loading washers and dryers, and often want a countertop above them for a folding area. I see the room getting larger and moving out of the basement, too,” he said. He has even designed a laundry room that includes a television for a client in Greenwich.

Watching television is one way to beat the tedium of ironing clothes in the laundry room, said Mr Lobuglio, and an ironing station is frequently included in the design of a laundry room. The ironing board may fold up into the wall and a hanging station and folding space is conveniently located nearby. “A cart on wheels that can go from the dryer to the counter and be stored beneath the counter is popular, too,” said Mr Lobuglio.

Like so many who use them today, the laundry room has learned to multitask. Large and bright, with the flexibility to morph from mudroom to laundry area to entertainment center, the laundry room is taking on a new shape.

My laundry room today is simple, but bigger and brighter than that of my childhood, with machines that are far more energy efficient than any we could have dreamed about in the 1960s. I take it for granted that doing laundry, mundane a chore as it might be, is at my beck and call. I understand now the thrill my mother experienced the day the Sears truck pulled up.

But I must admit that when the oversized comforter that will not fit into my washer warrants a trip to the laundromat, I relish the memories that stir of that less convenient time.