I think the lowest cost solution for moving W/D is removing the closet. You can easily vent Dryer directly outside and moving the plumbing for washer should be easy enough.

I think it's very doable!


In fact, I think it's brilliant. I approve of the idea of making the space work for your family's existing traffic patterns.

I agree w/ Satvia McGee Designs about the proximity of that closet to the current plumbing, and I think you should talk to a contractor (or your DIY husband, if you've got one) about which is more work--to run the plumbing farther, or to remove the closet?

I'm betting that taking out the closet would be easiest, and then your water pipes, drain, and vent don't have to travel very far at all.

I vote for standing in the new room and thinking about what feels right in terms of moving around in there. Maybe get some newspaper or kraft paper and cut them to the size of the washer & dryer, and the sink (if you're moving it). Lay them in place, and them mimic walking around.

I think you could easily still have room to store things in that room--I don't know what you have for infrastructure now, but you could put a floor-to-ceiling shelves (or if you want doors, a set of cabinets, and that would move a lot of things up off the floor and out of the way of some of the sports gear that normally sits on the floor (but some sports gear could sit on shelves, if they existed).

For some people there is a "stack them, or don't stack them?" question (if their laundry machines can stack--front loaders). Only you can answer; if you don't stack them, you create a platform you can use to fold clothes on, etc. But the storage space above isn't quite as useful (though upper cabinets with deep side-entry pullouts can make it more accessible)

https://sawdustgirl.com/how-to-build-and-install-a-pull-out-pantry-style-storage-cabinet/

Some people who've built a platform over their non-stacked front-loaders have installed pull-out sweater drying racks underneath.
https://sawdustgirl.com/how-to-make-a-pull-out-sweater-drying-rack-free-plans/
https://sawdustgirl.com/pull-sweater-drying-racks/

There are tons of clothes-drying rack options, especially custom ones, including ones that fold down from the wall, or fold up from the side, or heck, you could just put some things on hangers while they're wet and move them to the closet when they're dry.

Or you can make a clean-clothes sorter like Ana White's, and then you can sort clothes as they come out of the dryer, but they go into a basket, and then you make everybody take their own clothes to their room. So no more piles waiting in the laundry room.
http://www.ana-white.com/2012/08/laundry-sorter-0

If you had a laundry space more tailored to the way YOU do laundry
(like, with a place to hang clothes right as they come out of the dryer,
and also a folding table you can always access), you might find that you
don't have piles of clothes waiting to be put away!

This move could change TWO parts of your life!

In the laundry room in my apartment building's basement, there's a Formica table just for folding clothes. I find that I will fold the clothes as I take them out because there's a table right there to do it on.

When I was growing up, we didn't have that in the laundry room--we brought the clothes into the living room (or dining room) and folded them onto the sofa (or dining table--but it was usually busy with other stuff).

When we first moved into this apartment, I would bring the clothes upstairs to fold so I could be with my husband instead of downstairs on my own, and fold them onto the couch.

But in those "folding onto the couch" situations, the clothes would often not GET folded.

Now I take advantage of the infrastructure available to me, and it adds so much order to my life.

What I WISH I had is an ironing board and iron right there, next to the dryer, so I could take a kitchen towel out and say, "Ooh, I should touch up this wrinkled edge, and be able to do it right away (OK, I'd have to plug in the iron at that point, but by the time I'd taken three other T-shirts out of the dryer, it would be ready for me to iron the towel, and the handkerchief, and the crinkled up edges of the sheets, etc.).

I had a friend whose apartment had a little dressing room / sitting room off the room he used for his bedroom, and he left his ironing board and iron up all the time. If his shirt needed pressing, it was NO time at all to do so. Me, I have to get my ironing board out of the closet in the other room, and get the iron out of where IT is stored separately, so I never use it. I keep trying to find a way to store them together easily, and so far it's not working out. The place I could put them, I don't have a good way to hook up to power and the set-up space is not very good. So I have to take them in the other room, one way or another, and that's just too much for three handkerchiefs, or a single shirt.

I'm kind of jealous of your future laundry room!