Hi crl

When I first read 'cozy breakfast nook' I thought why not utilize that area to enlarge your kitchen instead of dealing with the laundry room? You could maybe incorporate an island to take the place of the breakfast nook.

Good luck on your offer!

Our new kitchen has/not complete a laundry closet (stackable) next to the refrigerator but not in the main work area. I think it would depend on the layout, etc. as to if it would work for you.

It really depends on the layout. We have the laundry in our tiny house right off the kitchen in my still not finished pantry. I like it there cause... well... mostly because without doing an expansion it was the only place to put it. We did reconfigure several interior walls.

My small laundry room is separate from the kitchen and I like it that way--especially when my sons are washing their clothes. The mess is not visible to anyone in the Living Rm or kitchen.

My sister built a semi-open layout home 5 years ago. Her laundry room is open to the kitchen and family room. She said if she had it to do over, she would have laundry in a separate space with a door she could close. She lives on a farm with lots of chore clothes and has company often. Even though the washer/dryer are pretty quiet (new), they add to the noise in the kitchen & family room with the tv going. My sis has hearing aids and background noise often interferes with her hearing your conversation. I thought you might want all points of view for your decision.

If I truly searched hi/low for alternative placement for laundry to no avail, I would opt to keep the spaces separate. It's difficult enough to view dirty kitchen/dishes, I would not want to be viewing the laundry

Good luck

How do you do laundry? Some sort things into different piles and have them sitting waiting for their turn for the washer. That may not work in the kitchen. Using a collapsable basket I collect what I'm washing (say whites) from the hampers. Put the load in and fold up the basket.

Also think about when (time, day) you do laundry. Will that interfere with other activities in the house?

Would you have a door? Noise or the smell of bleach may annoy.

Post a floor plan with measurements.

You might gain extra countertop space, or cabinets or something useful.

Since we don't own the house (and still haven't heard back on our offer) I don't have good enough measurements to post a plan at this point. Thus the general question. More curiousity at this point than anything.

I did briefly consider expansion into the breakfast nook, but it has a lot of lovely windows which I wouldn't want to lose and which we most likely would not be permitted to eliminate anyway because the house is old enough to be considered historic. The windows are too low to get cabinets under. Also we would have to rip out an orginal to the house built-in corner cupboard. So, just not a possibility.

Thank you all!

Just a rough sketch would help the rest of us visualize the space. Right now, I'm having a hard time. From what I've read, I'm thinking replace HW heater w/ tankless (are you sure it can't be moved to garage or use a an exterior installed tankless?) and stack the W/D to gain the most square footage then decide to move a wall or just add a counter, sorting hampers & hanging space to your laundry. But a rough sketch may change those thoughts :-)

I agree it's hard to give a fair answer without knowing the layout/seeing photos and understanding the reasons why DH and others suggest combining.

With that said, the big negative, for me, would be the noise. Our laundry is in an adjacent room to the kitchen/living room and it's hard to hear the TV/each other with the laundry running. Being able to close a door on that sound is a big help. If you can manage to only do laundry at off times, I guess that wouldn't matter.

The second negative depends on how you do laundry. Do you have dirty clothes sitting around in the laundry space? If so, I would opt to isolate that mess/dirt/smell in another space. We are childless so we don't collect laundry in our laundry room.... so, that wouldn't be an issue for us/everyone but it's something to consider.

The positives, potentially, are a larger feel to your kitchen..... and more countertop space. What are the positives your DH sees?

Our realtor was thinking we could move the w/ d to the detached garage. Not happening for me. I hate laundry enough as it is so schlepping it to a separate garage would be intolerable.

I think dh and the contractor are just thinking a bigger kitchen is better without really thinking through where the laundry would go.

And I do tend to have some laundry stacked on top of the machines, so my laundry space is messy. How much of a struggle it would be to change that I don't know as I have never tried.

If we actually get the house, I will be back with sketches and a thousand more questions as we would be shooting to remodel the kitchen/laundry area summer 2013.

Thanks everyone!

Is the garage attached to the house? We just bought a house with a tiny laundry-space off the kitchen. We took out the wall and took 8 ft from the garage. Enclosed it, added a separate door and I love it!

Jane

What's with posting photos on GW?? I tried to post two and only the last one shows. I'm sorry.

In the above photo, the door in rear is the old entrance from the garage to the house. The space with the machines, was part of the garage.

Jane

>I tried to post two and only the last one shows.

Hi, Jane. When you upload from your own computer, it's one photo per post. To do more than one photo in a single post you have to be linking to photos posted online somewhere, like photobucket.

I've done one in a small home where we did undercounter laundry with pocket doors gaining counter and some wall cabinet- was a couple- no kids. Only suitable to the organized and methodical. Tricky details and installation.
Have also hidden full size laundry behind stacking sliders- no advantage in that from what I saw.

Jane, Nope it's a detached garage.

Thanks for the thoughts everyone! They let our offer expire yesterday without ever contacting us. Who knows what's going on but I'm not feeling optimistic about getting the house at this point. Sigh.