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When it comes to efficient kitchen layout designs, the work triangle has long reigned supreme. The time-tested setup revolves around an imaginary blueprint that prioritizes the proximity of the sink, refrigerator, and stove. But imagine for a moment a work square that allows you to tick off another important task while you’re cooking: the laundry.
Having a washer and dryer in the kitchen isn’t a foreign concept to city dwellers who have long relied on combining the two zones out of a sheer lack of square footage. And while we get that a designated room for cleaning and folding clothes is preferable for most, when it’s not in the cards, the next logical place to put your machines is near or in the kitchen. After all, the room is already hooked up for plumbing and it’s where we tend to spend the most time. So picture this: You toss in a load of darks and then, in just a few steps, you’re firing up the Crockpot for dinner. In the spirit of staying very on top of chores, we rounded up six well-designed kitchen-laundry combinations that prove the more appliances, the merrier.
The Faux Pantry
The simplest way to hide your washer and dryer from view is with a tall cabinet. In this Austin guesthouse, designer Marie Flanigan concealed a basic white laundry center behind dark wood doors that, when closed, look as if they could lead to a pantry.
This similar arrangement by Studio McGee offers extra flexibility with two stacked doors (if you only want access to the bottom machine, you can quickly open just the one cupboard). The designers also carved out extra room for a small shelf of essentials at the tippy-top.
The Disappearing Act
For a side-by-side front-load arrangement, pocket doors offer a seamless solution, especially in a tight galley kitchen like this one by OAK Design Project. By being able to tuck the fronts away within the base frame, one person can throw in a load and another can buzz around cooking without having to squeeze around each other.
The One Round the Bend
If you don’t want to bother with camouflage, consider investing in minimalist appliances that you can tuck into the corner of your space. After shifting the fridge in their Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, apartment, Jeremiah Corley and Anthony Espino bought new stackable machines from GE, splurging more than they originally intended on a washer with a reversible door (that way it wouldn’t be opening into the wall).
The Base Camp
To make up for the lower cabinetry that side-by-side units naturally soak up, mount your pots and pans on the wall like food blogger Christine Han and her fiancé, Joon, did in their Brooklyn apartment.
For a middle-of-the-road setup, take a page out of Kate Voegele’s book. The We the Dreamers blogger decided to minimize the look of chunky white appliances in her cooking zone (and all the pipes and cords that come with them) by framing them in a sleek waterfall butcher block countertop. The wood top provides crucial surface space for sorting, folding, chopping, and dicing.