Have you communicated the problem to the architect yet? That should be your first step. If you feel he has made a mistake, you should ask him how he plans on rectifying it. (Was he hired for plans to renovate the laundry room in addition to the kitchen or was he just doing the kitchen?)

Certain models of washers and dryers (Maytag makes some) come apart relatively easily so they can be delivered into tight places like down cellar steps. This may be an option when it is time to replace.

Have you checked various sizes and options for appliances?

Can you post the plans?

As dekeoboe said, talk to the architect first and see what he says. I would not move forward with a plan for a doorway to a laundry room that does not accommodate typical laundry appliances. How crazy would that be?

He was hired to help with the kitchen and master bath. The master bath is on the other side of the one end of the kitchen. The laundry room is on the other side of one of the long walls of the kitchen. Making the kitchen larger necessitates moving into the laundry room space and it seemed the perfect solution. These three spaces being so close to each other is why I hired an architect --to help us figure out what was possible.

We have called him. He's out of town of course.

There are plenty of washers and dryers 24'' wide or less, with up to 3.6 cu ft capacity (Bosch Axxis), which is not huge but not tiny. You can make the design work, even if you cannot widen the door.

I have no advice besides what you've already gotten. I do empathize as my architect seems to have missed some key things (drew 2 walls as one on top of the other. NOT! Did not spec out the new staircase or electric adequately. Missed heating pipes inside walls she wanted us to move. Very annoying and I will say my contractor does not think highly of her. Sigh

This architect has been wonderful to work with--extra patient and extremely accessible, so this "oversight" really floored me. I'm guessing he saw this detail because it's clearly represented in his drawing but he either forgot to mention it to us or we all got distracted by focusing on the main feature of the new design which is an S shaped curved wall. He's a very steady person so I'm sure he'll have a solution. It may or may not work for us. This is our first remodeling project and it's been interesting, fun and stressful. We've been trying to chose countertops for weeks now and we finally found the perfect material, but DH still won't commit. Now that DH sees that we may need to go back to a galley kitchen, he's rejoicing in the money he's going to save. But that's a whole other thread...

I think you need to take a deep breath and try to stay focused on your end vision and why you're doing this renovation. Crap tends to happen along the way so pleeeaaase don't through in the towel. You know why you hired him - "extra patient and extremely accessible" - and he will have a solution.

When we were doing our whole house reno I lost count of how many times we just wanted to give up because it is stressful, you wonder if you're doing the right thing spending all that money, putting your family through all that stress, making the right choices/decisions. - I have often wondered how often did our GC and KD want to get rid of me and my questions, uncertainties, idiosyncrasies, and quirks.
We have been back in our house now since mid-September and the whole stress, fun, being now broke was so worth it. Our house functions so much better and looks so much nicer. We wondered if we would ever reach this point as we laboured over granite choices, lighting, flooring, (we stopped the job for 2 weeks because we hated the floor)colours, design, appliances. Sometimes we wondered why we ever started the process but then we remembered what we started with and we knew. The end result will be worth it. Oh and we took turns wanting to stop the process and save money. But we didn't and it's worth it.

Do you give him specs for the washer/dryer? If not, why would you expect him to know the doorway was too small?

I'm going to stray off topic here and forgive me, but I'm going to be blunt...have you posted your Kitchen plans here for review? Have you had an actual Kitchen Designer review your plans?

I'm asking b/c the majority of architects are not very good at designing functional kitchens. They can design "pretty" kitchens, but they're usually dysfunctional.

In the several years I've been here, I've only seen one architect-designed kitchen that was functional.

Why am I bringing this up? Because I don't want you to end up w/a kitchen that's dysfunctional as well as a Laundry Room door that won't work.

Perhaps if you post your layout here we can find a solution for you as well as check your kitchen layout for functionality.

BTW...I think most domestic standard-sized washers & dryers are 27" to 30" or so wide. I would really try to find a solution to your problem that doesn't involve having to take the washers & dryers apart, having to buy a "specialty" item, or having to purchase undersized washers & dryers b/c your door isn't wide enough.

I'd wait and let the architect earn their fee by coming up with a solution before panicking. Your architect seems decent, so give him a chance. We have/had an architect who was seriously incompetent, and we have no faith in him and will be suing him once our job is complete. I say that to show I am not a rah rah architect person at the moment, lol.

Perhaps, if you rip out the door and framing, you would have a larger opening by a few inches. You could then hang a tall curtain/drape instead of a hard door if you wanted to keep the washer/dryer out of view.

I feel like you're jumping the gun to just call it quits over one thing. Communication is vital to this whole process. You stated in your second post that so far your architect has been very easy to work with and everything has been great with him so far. So to ditch him over this one thing seems hasty.

Did you communicate the dimensions of the washer and dryer to him before he drew the plans so that he was aware of them beforehand? If you did and it was an oversight on his part, then just call him and ask him about it. He may have an easier solution than what you're visualizing in your head. Give him a chance to rectify the problem. If you didn't give him the dimensions then it was an oversight on your part.

I second the advice given above about hiring a kitchen designer for the kitchen layout. We are using an architect for our house build. But I will be using a kitchen designer for the actual kitchen layout as that's their specialty. Our architect has a basic layout on our plans but I'll leave the heavy refining to the specialist. :)

Thanks for the encouragement. We'll talk with him first thing Monday morning. I don't have the design on the web, otherwise I'd post the link to it.

The door to our laundry is 30 inches and it is still very awkward to get through there with a basket in hand, due to an odd position. Even if you can get the w/d in/out, you still need to carry lots of baskets through.

I just took some measurements again. I think we can take the frame off the doorway that will be left and then widen it a just a bit to make it about 30 inches. We had talked about making a pocket door from the master bedroom to the master bath (which is the same wall as this laundry room door). I think we can do something like that here. It's not as bad as I thought. I'll try and post the design today. Thanks everybody for talking me down off the remodel ledge!

Embrace the ledge, just don't jump. By the time everything is done, you will know every texture and shape the ledge has. And as you have discovered from your first visit, there is usually a safe way off the ledge.

kas

I was going to ask if you had trim framing the door and if you had considered a pocket door. Just keep in mind that the two pockets can't share space since you need to be able to open both doors at the same time.

24" isn't a doorway. It's a crawl-way.

I would not be happy with an architect who had tunnel vision with regard to his/her design that totally disrupted the common function of an adjacent room. In my opinion, the burden was not on you, statgeek, to figure out how the architect's design affected a room he/she was closing off (as far as measuring your appliances and saying "Oh by the way, here are the dimensions of my appliances.") That's what you are paying him/her for . . . to design and incorporate it into function. My 2 cents.

From the limited amount of information provided, it is clear that you would have this problem regardless of who discovered it and when. It's good that you have found it now and can deal with it before construction begins.

Such issues are normal in a renovation and I'm sure your architect has solved many problems you didn't even know existed. Without knowing exactly how the project progressed, it's hard to say whether the architect should have caught this or not.

My concern is the tendency to immediately throw the architect overboard. There will be many problems along the way as you begin this process and the best approach is to focus on solving the problem. If you expect problem free renovation, you will definitely be disappointed.

Just a thought -- is there a window in the new laundry that would be wide and tall enough for the washer & dryer (and obviously not too high off the ground)? We had a similar problem once and this was the solution.

Thanks for all your perspectives. I have shared them with DH. I apologize for not posting the design but it's copyrighted and can't be used without the architect's permission. DH and I spent the day pondering the situation. We still haven't heard back from the architect. We're both still stunned but no longer pissed. One of the selling points of his services was to get a to scale drawing of the house as is. He came one day and measured everything 3 times and then created a plan of the current house. So he was well aware of the dimension of the appliances and of the pass through door way into the laundry room. It was clearly an oversight on his part. I'm sure it wasn't intentional and I know he is juggling many projects. I have a very detailed oriented job and I make mistakes too. I usually just acknowledge that I made a mistake and assume that my clients understand that I am human. My mistakes are easily fixable and not nearly as costly. I must admit that I am still surprised he didn't catch this as reorienting the washer and dryer was key to being able to widen the kitchen and this was the solution he proposed.

I agree completely with steff1, in that working with this architect is the way to go, and I hope my comments did not lead you to think otherwise. Sorry if it came out that way.

My main point was to stress that the mistake was not YOUR fault, statgeek.

Enough washer/dryers are 24'', plenty are 27'', and 30'' is enough for everything unless you're running a laundromat. So the problem seems pretty easily solved, a couple different solutions. Don't stress out.

Statgeek,

I am going to go out on a limb. I think the issue with the
laundry room is a bigger problem that has nothing to do with
he architect's drawings. A few inches can be easily
corrected with a computerized updated drawing. Perhaps a wall
will be adjusted or an entry way by inches. Not seeing the
plans it is hard to guess specifically but having a
minor in Architecture I know it is easy to fix without
even seeing it.

Is it possible you are 2nd guessing this big project? You
mentioned the architect is nice and you enjoy working with
him. You also mention your husband is not thrilled with
the countertop plan.

"......DH still won't commit. Now that DH sees that we may
need to go back to a galley kitchen, he's rejoicing in the
money he's going to save. But that's a whole other
thread..."

I ask the question because I know too well what it is like
trying to do a reno when your DH is not 100% on board.
My DH can be stubborn, tight fisted and ready to find fault.
And believe it or not you can share these thoughts on this
very thread. You would be surprised to find how many
of us are in the middle of renos or finished a reno and
have a DH or DW who is not so happy about it. My DH loves
my reno now but he could not visualize it. It took a while
and he was always quick to complain. And cheer about
saving money.

Don't give up yet. Blfenton said it beautifully.
Wishing you lots of good reno luck
~boxer

We met with the architect and GC today and we think we can make the doorway 27.75 inches wide by taking off the trim. I know it sounds crazy but we're going to try and go with that. If we use a four wheel dolly to move the appliances out of the laundry room, then we don't have to turn the appliances to move them down the hallway. The GC is going to start demolition tomorrow with this and see if it's feasible. I go in and out of that doorway all the time with my square laundry basket so I know it's large enough for daily use. It's only when you have to change appliances that it would be an issue.

The architect was very apologetic and really surprised that he had overlooked this. Last fall we had been talking about doing multiple things to the house, one of which was enlarging the closets in the master bedroom. If we did that, then the wall that holds the door to the master bedroom would move a few inches away from this smaller laundry room door and so we could then expand this smaller doorway. We have since decided to hold off on the master bedroom and just do the kitchen for now. So perhaps that's how it got overlooked.

Yesterday, we spent time coming up with an arrangement for our current galley kitchen and last evening we felt like we just needed to go with that. But today at work, I thought about how CRAZY it is to give up this kitchen plan we've worked on for months all for the sake of a laundry room door.

I'll let you know how the demolition goes tomorrow. Stay tuned.