Your inspiration photos seem to solve your needs. A long bench, with drawer or basket storage below and a double hook (possible a shelf) beneath each window, would give you a lot of storage. You may even have room to add a tall, pull out cabinet at each end or you could modify the closet to have a pull out as well as hanging area. You could add ceiling height, deep cabinets over your washer and dryer and a countertop for folding. If you must have a hamper, as in your pictures, buy a decorative one and store it under your window. After that, just add a rug and it would look great.

@Trish Walter I love your window wall #2 idea. I think as you continue to age you will like that the washer is right next to the dryer, I also like the idea of a usable upper cab over the sink and open shelving for displaying something over the washer/dryer. I would only do the split up washer dryer if your sink/sink cabinet were small. I can see it working as I always put a laundry basket on the floor when I transfer my wash to the dryer so that no clothes hit the floor. I am imagining it would be easy enough to dump them from the wash into a basket and slide them over to load into the dryer but that isn't something I would want to do. I also like the idea of base cabinets and a wood top for your longer open wall. I'm not sure what your needs are though, are you someone that hang dries their clothes often and once again since you are shorter you may not want a wall mounted pull down version. Something like this clothes airer would be fun and functional; probably sturdy enough to hang wet towels on. It is on a pulley system so you can raise and lower!

I did not do the final designs you see. I used PAINT, but then my cabinet designer drew what you see above. The shelves in my study sit on top of an air return box (the grill is facing in the hall behind the study wall. I added a photo of that. Grill outlines in white.) Since there was this large hump sticking out in the study, I decided that the space above could be put to good use. I did a similar thing in the back of our house. Air return in hallway. Bump out was in my closet. I built shelves about it for pocketbooks. You could build a cabinet with doors above your air return.

My current laundry room is similar spacing to your layout 1. I have a 12" deep pantry closet on one side of the room and washer/dryer/sink on the other side, with 32" from the front of the W/D to the Pantry Doors. I have a top load washer, front load dryer and when the dryer door is open there is no room to walk past it, but I don't leave it open and don't need to walk past it when I am tossing wash between the washer and dryer and when unloading the dryer the basket fits under the door, so I fill the basket, close the door. I may fold the clothes on top of the w/d or carry it back to my bedroom if it is hanging clothes. I also have bi-fold doors on the pantry - can't have more than one person at a time in the room. It is not ideal, and I will be renovating it along with the rest of the house, (bought an end 2 end fixer) but it functions well enough that it is one of the last rooms I will be renovating.