laundry rooms and small houses

On the cover of the most recent IKEA catalog,  the caption says, "A home does not need to be big, just smart."  That is so true.  I know some people love big houses, but for me, I like small, smart ones.   One space that is so important is the laundry room.  When we were building our house I had many conversations with our architect about this.  I said I did not need a large space, although that would be heaven.  There are some fabulous laundry rooms out there...Mary Anne from Classic.Casual.Home did a post on them here.

Here's my short list on what I must have:

1.  a window
2.  a bar to hang things on hangers when they are drying
3.  room for a drying rack for things that cannot be placed on hangers
4.  a clothes sorter
5.  a full size washer and dryer


Things I would like to have:

1.  upstairs laundry room in a two story house
2.  a sink

There's not a lot of space in this tiny room, but it functions beautifully.  It has a bar to the left for hanging clothes for drying, room for a sorter since I stacked the washer/dryer and a drying rack.  There's even space for a very small sink.   The architect had the W/D side by side with a door that opened in to the right.  Hello....did he not hear a word I said?  I even sent him the photo of my previous laundry room. (bottom of post)

The solution to a door that opened into the room....double doors that open out and sit flush against the space on either side when they are left open.  By having doors that open out it did not lose any space inside the tiny room.  There's no space to fold clean laundry, but since the laundry rooms is upstairs, there's plenty of beds to fold and sort laundry.  And since it's upstairs, we kept the small stack-able washer/dryer in the garage for sandy beach towels.

This was our laundry room in our previous home in Connecticut.  It was by no means perfect, but I knew what worked and what I needed to make it functional.  It had a pocket door so that was not an issue.  I have all the important items on my list:  Window, bar to hang, folding rack, clothes sorter, full size washer and dryer.  Since I did not need to stack it in this space, I can fold on top of the machines.  I do laundry almost everyday.  We are a family of four and so that means we have about 6 to 8 items each per day.  Workout clothes, regular clothes, Pajamas, plus underwear, towels and linens.  And that's times 4....I think we are a pretty average family, but does everyone have this much laundry?  Do you have a day of the week for this one chore for you or someone else to accomplish?  I do it everyday because that way it never feels overwhelming.  Having my laundry room upstairs makes it that much easier to put clothing away, so it never feels daunting.  What are your laundry tricks?