It depends on your personal preferences and where the bedrooms are located. Our master bedroom is on the first floor, so the laundry room is as well. As you come into the house from the garage, there is a short hallway with laundry room on the immediate left. It is large and has sink, extra subzero frig, tons of upper and lower cabinets, and a long counter for folding with handing rack above. It has a built in ironing board that I have never used. The prior owner designed this laundry room and it works great for us. But if all of our bedrooms were upstairs, I could certainly see making a case for having it on the second level.
Our 1950âs ranch had that when we moved in. Weâve since renovated that bathroom and taken it out, but it was kind of cool.
Our w/d are currently in the basement. I donât have a utility sink down there, but I do have a folding table - not that I ever do the folding down there, it just became a space for H to stack his pile 
I do all my folding in the bedroom or in the family room while Iâm watching TV. I donât hang anything to dry down there, either (too dank and dusty), instead I bring it up and hang it in my shower. So basically, even though our basement offers the most space for things, there is no real benefit to us having them down there. We have the hook ups in place already in a closet in the hallway off our kitchen, eventually Iâm sure weâll get a stackable set and put them there.
Iâm probably an outlier here- first house had 2nd floor laundry in hallway closet- just seemed like it was everywhere and needed to fold on my bed. Current house, 24 years, itâs in the basement with a laundry chute- just like the house I grew up in. Large room, drying rack, hanging area, folding table and a nicely finished room down there if I want to fold while watching a show.
Yes, have to carry it up but Iâm in good shape and hope to stay that wayđ
3 Likes
I like laundry near the kitchen, throw it in and close the doors. Plus, weâve always had a least one laundry mishap with a leaking washer at some point.
I have a friend who loves having her laundry upstairs and has remodeled twice to do that.
When deciding I think you also have to factor in sleeping. My spouse is an early bird and throws running clothes in the wash at 6AM and I am a late night person who often does a load at 11 before bed.
It would be nice not to carry laundry up and down but Iâd hate having dirty clothes in any bedroom.
This thread is giving me so much food for thought!
Weâve always lived in older homes so laundry - so far - has always been in the basement and weâve always had two story homes. We are home shopping again and Iâve been keeping laundry location in mindâŠ
Ours IS in the basement but we have two laundry chutes - as many mid-20âs home like ours does! One second floor, one main floor in the kitchen - really this is so perfect. But too bad there wasnât a REVERSE chute situation! When laundry is finished shooting it UP to the correct floor! LOL. 
5 Likes
We have the laundry room in the second floor, but I think when we get older, we may have trouble doing the laundry if we live on the first floor. Iâm anticipating when we get to our 90s, maybe we can hire somebody to do laundry.
1 Like
Iâm sure you mean âhireâ - lol threats of violence rarely get me help with laundry 
ETA (used to say âhitâ)
2 Likes
Iâd just like a laundry room!! So many homes in California have it in their garage!!
1 Like
@CMCMLM a couple of years back I put a laundry room into a garage for one of my clients! I wouldnât have wanted it there, but she didnât want to lose space anywhere else.
I moved the laundry up stairs when we added a two story addition to our house. It doesnât have a sink and isnât really quite big enough for our ironing board. I donât have a drying rack, and usually just hang the few thing that I donât fling into the dryer on a hanger or a flat rack that came with the dryer and I stick on top of the dryer. I LOVE having laundry on the second floor. We have two laundry baskets and sort the clothes when we take them off into whites and colors. Delicate clothes go in net bags but never get a wash to themselves.
1 Like
I think(?) that for new homes laundry chutes are often not allowed. Canât recall if it is for fire or child safety reasons.
I carried clothes down/up two flights of stairs to basement laundry spaces during 2 pregnancies/babies. Certainly it would be easier to do now, just two of us. But as we get older safety would become an issue. There will likely be a time when we can still climb the stairs but would be less steady doing so with a loaded laundry basket. Glad to have the w/d near our bedroom upstairs.
When there are just a few things to air dry (the usual case), I just hang over the edges of laundry basket on top of dryer. I used to also use a small old wicker couch in the hallway, but we sent that to daughterâs apartment. I do some folding on top of the washer. Honestly I like the fact that I have to move things along quickly, never have much backlog of stuff waiting to be put away. I hang hubbyâs shirts/pants on the railing (hallway open to family room below)⊠the signal for him to put them away.
In my house we have laundry in the basement (it is a split so three levels down from the bedrooms) - I have clotheslines in the basement for hanging stuff to dry and we added a laundry sink at one point. I drag the clothes down and back up the steps and usually fold on my bed.
In our apartment (one level - our retirement trial place) the laundry is off the kitchen with room for a foldable drying rack (no laundry sink). I do like that it is convenient to everything (but the apartment is small enough that everything is close to everything). I still fold the laundry on my bed.
My daughterâs apartment has the washer dryer in a big closet area - she has room for a large drying rack next to it. From the drying rack her clothes travel about 2 feet onto the closet clothes rack. She still sorts and folds her clothes on her bed (next to the closet with the built in laundry).
1 Like
How do folks use the laundry sink?
We initially missed having one when we moved to our new home with upstairs laundry closet. I donât do much hand wash, but we had used our prior basement laundry sink for âproject stuffâ (rinsing paint brushes etc). For a while we considered adding a laundry sink to the unfinished basement, but we got to like the idea of having no basement plumbing (in case street sewage ever backed up). Also we were to cheap and lazy to investigate the idea.
Weâve always had the laundry room on the first floor. It is a tiny hallway/mud-room/laundry room combo but we have space for some cabinets on the wall, some wall hooks, and a laundry sink. All our bedrooms are upstairs.
I prefer it that way for all the dirty clothes that get dropped in there as we walk in.
The laundry tub has seen a lot of use in the days when the kids were young. I hand washed their clothes, bibs, and stuffed toys. More recently it is used when the grand dog gets a bath when he comes inside after rolling in the wet mud!
I wonât disagree that it is a hassle to walk up and down with heavy laundry baskets. H does it like it is supposed to be done â carries the clothes down in a basket, folds them downstairs while he watches tv and then takes it up.
I, on the other hand, put my dirty laundry in a net bag, stand at the top of the open foyer and throw the bag down ( perfected to do least amount of damage) and drag the bag with the washed clothes up the stairs. All the sorting and folding is done on the bed in our room at the end of the day.
Kids when they lived here, had dirty and clean laundry baskets in their room. Nothing went into their closet or chest of drawers unless I did it.
If we ever move, I would like to have my bedroom and laundry room on the first floor. Till then, I hope we stay fit enough to continue our routines.
1 Like
I prefer bathtub with handheld shower attachment over laundry sink with fixed faucet. Easier to really âwashâ.
1 Like
BILâs previous house in CA had his W/D in the garage. When I lived in HI, our W/D was outside in a partially enclosed area off the kitchen.
DHâs childhood home in the Bay Area was a typical CA-style one story home with 3 BR, 2.5 BA. Eventually they put a second story on the same sq footage as the first floor, adding three more bedrooms, another BA and some other spaces. They kept the master downstairs on the first floor and turned an existing bedroom into a laundry room. It was weird though as it was carpeted and didnât look like a laundry room - no sink, no counter, space, etc, just the W/D on one wall with cabinets above. She had shelving along the other walls that she used for storage. It looked kind of odd with the wall to wall carpet and it was across from the master, not near the garage or kitchen, nor any of the bedrooms the five kids upstairs slept in. I think the W/D was originally just inside the garage but they turned that space into a powder room and pantry. It would not have been my preference when going to all the trouble of adding a second story but she lived there for another 40+ years and made a ton of $$ when she sold it so I guess the new owners didnât mind. I bet they did some renovations anyway.
2 Likes
Fixed, sometime I donât catch the autocorrects between when I type and when I hit submit.
AaarghâŠstory of my life as well!
2 Likes
I had rented a house with the laundry space in the garage that was built back in the late 80s, not a recent phenomenon.
1 Like
SO much to think about!
-
The laundry sink would be used for a lot of things. Dumping buckets after mopping, soaking stained laundry, cleaning off tools, etc etc.
-
Our old house was a typical development house and so it was convenient to be able to throw laundry in or switch to dryer while I was working in my first floor office or cooking etc. Our current house is more compact - part of it dates to 1730 and part to 1990s, so it is much easier to run upstairs to throw a load in. I like using the stairs as I think it is healthy (and I dont have any physical limitations).
-
I dry much of my clothes on drying racks. If my pant legs or shirt sleeves shrink even a little they are too short (I am tall). Towels/sheets and socks and undies get dried, but any everyday clothes loads will have at least one drying rack of clothes. As part of this reno, we may add a full master closet. In which case, I could have a laundry sorter in there. That would help a lot. Currently, we can only fit a tiny hamper in the closet.
-
Many of you mentioned being able to throw dirty things right in the washer in a first floor laundry room. That is interesting, I have not felt that need, but something to consider. I do often have dirty old towels that are used to dry the dog when it rains, so they have to get carried upstairs now.
Itâs always helpful to hear tips from others. And I have never seen a laundry chute around here. I was under the impression they were against fire code.
2 Likes
I used it exclusively to bathe my little dog and to rinse swim suits. Dog is now bathed in the tub and the suits rinses in the sink.
1 Like