Planning out your laundry yard might get tough, especially when space is tight in small homes. Should it be combined with the kitchen, and what kind of equipment should you buy in order to maximise efficiency for optimal storage space?
Who better to ask than a professional? Interior designer Megan Zhang, the director of Atelier M ID studio shares tips on making the best use of the laundry space.
Homeowners should avoid overcrowding the laundry space. Visualise the amount of space left after everything is moved in. Also take into consideration the area needed for drying, since that takes up a lot of space.
If the space allows, consider building a washing bay area for easy access to a water point for washing of mops, shoes or hand washing of clothes. Do so by varying the floor height or adding a kerb to keep the dry and wet areas separate.
This is not recommended if homeowners often air-dry their laundry and do heavy cooking concurrently. Cooking grease will likely get trapped on the laundry, resulting in unwanted odour. Combining the yard and kitchen is possible if homeowners do minimal or no cooking, and the air-drying laundry will not be visible from the living and dining hall. However, it is still subject to every home’s individual layout.
Allocate sufficient space to accommodate large laundry loads to avoid overcrowding, especially for air drying of clothes. Other than planning for the usual big items like the washer, dryer and clothes hanging system, have sufficient smart storage for items like the laundry basket, clothes pegs, detergent and even the ironing board.
Homeowner should take measurements at the actual site with the selected model’s dimensions to ensure the existing site conditions like water pipes or kerbs are being considered. Homeowners should also take note that if they would like to stack the dryer above the washer, natural lighting might be blocked from the window, which may not be optimal depending on individual layouts.
Text: Rossara Jamil/Home and Decor