With a baby coming soon, I would opt for storage up high. Once a/he is moving you'll want to keep things out of reach, especially if the door is removed.

Have you considered getting longer hoses to move washer to left? I have the same problem as you in my laundry room. Washer hook up is on the right, and front load washer door is left-hinged.

Out of the options you have listed, I'd go with stacking and vertical storage on the side. In my previous house, I used a Closetmaid or maybe it was Rubbermaid garage shelving system in my laundry closet. After doing my research, I chose the garage shelving system because it was rated for higher capacity on the shelves. I got the one that hung from a rail. Installation was super easy. I bought it at the local Home Depot. You can start the shelves at about 4 feet from the floor and use the floor area to store brooms, vacuum cleaners, etc.

Much prefer side by side (have had both). Gives you a flat surface to fold or sort laundry, or other uses too. You can get longer hoses and swap sides for the units. Even tho you can put shelves to the side when stacked, it really is a deep narrow hole that you are trying to retrieve things from. Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

I like side by side, as well. And, bless your heart for cloth diapers. You're a better woman than I am. I tried cloth on my now-34 year old baby, but lasted about a week. Too much reality for me. Good luck, and congrats on the upcoming birth.

I have side by side in a closet as well as a hang rod above. Folded laundry get sorted into folded stacks on top of the machines, and hanging clothes are sorted on the hang rod as I pull items out of the dryer. Sorting clothes as I pull them out makes putting stuff away go pretty quick. Besides clothes, Stain release is in a spray bottle hanging from the rod, and other than that all I have is laundry soap and a mesh lingerie bag on a small shelf. Depending on how many laundry soap type items you need to store, and how much hanging room you need I might suggest a cabinet and hang rod combo, like this:

While I'd rather have them side by side, unless you can switch the washer to the left side I wouldn't do that. I had it that way in my previous home and absolutely hated it. You had to take all the laundry out of the washer, into a basket, then go around the door to put it into the dryer. Yuck. I now have stacked units with shelves and it works great - all of our cleaning supplies are in that closet - basically it's a laundry and broom closet. (PS I do not sort or fold laundry in the closet).

Side by side- I use the tops of my machines as a work surface for folding, sorting, or holding the laundry basket out of reach of my toddler as I am doing chores. You can also get a magnetic ironing mat to use on top for small jobs. Much less work than hauling out the folding board for every little thing.

I have a train rack above my laundry room sink that I love. Strong enough to use as a shelf, but also doubles as a drying rack. One of those might be a good option in addition to shelving above the machines.

I don't think I can swap then, there are rules about how long the dryer vent hose can be, and there is no space to run it behind the washer, anyway. The washer will have to be moved over to the left if we stack, so I already bought long hoses for it. But the swap I don't think we can do it. I've been dealing with side by side with washer door facing the wrong way for 3 years now - it is annoying but I've managed... however would prefer more optimal setup with more laundry on the way! Even if we fail at cloth diapering there will still be all the spit up and cleaning up cloths :)

I actually rescheduled the delivery because of a work conflict with the delivery window, so I have more time to think about this.

I'm surprised no one likes the pedestal idea - yes we've have to put locks on once baby is mobile, but it seemed like the raised machines would make doing laundry easier.

We never fold on top of the machines, we'd be standing in the hallway - we dump laundry on the bed and fold there, also very close to the dresser to toss underwear and socks into drawers - very efficient and lots of airy space for folding :) For drying, anything hang dry we either throw over the stair railing in the hall right across from the laundry, or hang outside. We don't hang anything inside the closet, it would not get good air circulation in there. So folding and hanging space is not an issue. We need storage for cleaning products and any other storage we can free up!

We have pedestals. My husband likes them and I don't care either way. The drawers are fine but we don't keep much in them.

My builder talked us out of stacked on our upcoming home. He said he's had numerous clients over the years come back and have them rebuild the laundry to allow for side by side. Not sure the exact whys but I was convinced so am going with side by side.

If you don't fold on top of washer/dryer than pedestals would be a good option if you think you would use that area. I'd also make the upper cabinets deeper than 12" if you can. 15" or even 18" would be good above deep appliances.

Also, have you seen this link? Not all of this applies to you of course, but there are great ideas.

Laundry redo

Oh, if you leave them side by side, I absolutely would do pedestals. As much as I hated the configuration of my old side by sides, I also hate bending down to put clothes in the washer, but mostly, to get wet clothes out of the washer.

We've lived with stacked a few times and it didn't bother me. I'm 5'6" so I guess I'm a good height to bend down to the washer and reach up to the dryer!

Annette Holbrook, that's pretty neat but we definitely don't spend that much time thinking about our laundry - we don't even sort it, just throw it all in and wash on normal cycle... never had a problem with that! I can't believe she folds laundry for 6 kids - maybe they should fold their own! We are definitely not going to have 6 kids, LOL.

I would love those racks for drying stuff that needs to be laid flat.

For the record, our children do their own laundry. We did cloth diapers for a bunch of our kiddos. They can start helping with the wash even before they're potty trained. : ) I have happy memories of them pulling fluffy clean diapers out of the dryer and being "buried" in the piles of clean laundry in baskets. Great times. You're gonna love it!

Pedestals are nice as it's easier to put your laundry in and out without bending. We got rid of our pedestals as it made them so tall! Couldn't put any upper cabs in because I couldn't reach them!

Good luck on the cloth diapering! They are so cute, we cloth diapered our now 5 year old. It doesn't need to be an all or nothing if it gets overwhelming. Love the big bums they have from all the stuffing!

If you are going to install cabinets, I second the above comment about deeper cabinets. Sister installed shallow cabinets above her W & D and couldn't fully shut the door of one because her jug of laundry detergent was deeper than the cabinet.

I don't think we'll be doing cabinets, more likely just shelves. The problem with swapping the W/D is that the closet is not deep enough to allow the dryer vent to run behind the washer - already we had to remove the bifold doors and replace with the curtains because the closet was built for 80's machines and the modern FL machines are deeper. So I don't think we can swap the W/D and the length to the wall vent would be a fire hazard. I'm going to do some measurements and mock-up with tape where things would end up in either stacked or pedestal scenario, and see what we come up with!

If your machines are front load you should be able to find one that swings the right way to avoid having to go around it or you can get a dryer where the door opens down.

You can also use your bifold doors with different hardware. I can't remember where but there is hardware that allows the door to open the whole way.

I think JohnsonHardware.com has the hardware for opening doors all the way.

i prefer side by side, but i fold out of the dryer and stack on top-- way easier than dumping and folding, imo!! :) i would be ok with stacked if i didn't fold out of the dryer because i'm fairly tall... tho, in the winter i also sometimes put towels on top of the washer/dryer and lay sweaters on top of them to dry...

i love my pedestals- 15.5"tall- and they are stuffed! i have numerous different types of detergent, bleach, stain remover bottles, etc, etc under the washer and dryer sheets and extra towels and rags and a bunch of other stuff under the dryer...

i have had cabinets above my w&d in previous homes and it doesn't work great for me because i stack clothes, etc on top and don't always immediately remove- then to get in the cabinets, i have to pull over a stepstool and remove what's on top of the w&d to get into the cabinet. open shelves definitely would be easier! if you put up shelves, i would make them 18" deep.