No, I haven't needed to service the washer or dryer at all. (It probably helps that I bought Mieles, as they've been trouble-free little workhorses. I'm opinionated about buying as much quality you can afford at the outset, to avoid problems later on, which has served me very well in this instance.) As far as accessing the dryer vent, I haven't actually ever done that. It vents down through a crawl space and out the foundation of our house. (You make me wonder however if it's time to go check on that, to see how much build-up there might be.) I don't seem to get an overabundance of dust, and am pretty meticulous about keeping the mesh lint screen cleaned after every dryer load, so that's probably helped. The washer is a tight fit, but can be moved. We need two people to actually pick it up (a couple of inches) to move it out, but have only needed to move it once in the time it's been there. (That was in the beginning when I had the sheet metal pan made, which took some time to procure and set into place. I also went the extra mile and bought metal mesh supply lines for peace of mind, knowing that moving the washer or dryer would take some planning!) The turn-off valve is at the back of the washer (behind the laundry basket) and rather hard for me to access as I'm short and don't have long arms. The Mieles are deep, rather than wide and because of this, I keep a step ladder (just in case) at that end of my home in my closet, so I can reach it quickly if the need ever arises. Hopefully it never will, but I did plan for the eventuality. This is absolutely some of the best space planning I've ever done. I can't tell you how easy it is to deal with laundry at this stage of my life...you'll just have to experience it yourself! If I ever have to move from here, I would repeat every detail exactly as is, in a heartbeat. Good luck!

Yes, I've researched the codes here. CA does have the same restriction - a legal bedroom cannot have a door to the garage. However, half the houses in this neighborhood have this same floor plan, and half of those families use this room as a bedroom - even though it's not legally a bedroom. However, we are planning to wall up that door and cut a new door to the garage somewhere else, so it will be a legal bedroom. The setback over here is 20 feet from the sidewalk. The front of our garage is 26 feet from the sidewalk, so we could extend the house up to 6 feet past the front of the garage. The house was built in 1962, and most of the houses in the neighborhood are very similar to this one. We haven't really considered a complete teardown due to cost. I think even if we did do a complete teardown, because the lot is so small, we would still end up with the same footprint - and face the same challenge of arranging all the rooms in the house. We did consider a second story, but aside from the fact that the foundation currently won't support a second story, a two story isn't really suitable for my elderly parents.

I want to put my washer and dryer( front load ) in a closet side by side. They are 27" wide. How wide does the closet have to be if I want to use 60" bi fold doors so the clear the washer/dryer. The closet is 40" deep.

A few updates and I will get some better pictures once i get everything moved out but i have the door into the bathroom cut in. I have been having trouble with Pella who we bought the door from which has put this on a 3 week hold so far as the issue still is not resolved. We are considering stacking the washer dryer. The location we were considering would be where the closest machine to the wall is. The plumbing in the wall was moved over to allow for the new door to the bath and I have some electrical lines that need installing for the new panel in the garage. Doing this while we have the walls open and since the electrical panels are below this. We have a few tiles we bought to see if we liked them but I am not sure i like any of them. I think if i were to pick it would be the darker 12x24. Any thoughts or opinions on tile, stacking of the machine or anything else here?