I have a laundry shoot from the second floor to the basement (where the W&D are) and an entry to the shoot also from the first floor.
It’s why we bought this house. 
Now if only I could figure out how to reverse the shoot so the clean clothes would go upstairs by themselves . . . .
LOL, that’s totally what I said a few posts above!!!
Need a dumb waiter for that.
Our laundry is on first floor. Was in basement for prior house. Currently we have a utility sink, washer and dryer and a closet that we use for hanging some clothes to dry. Has a door so we can close it if “company comes over.” Though we can just close door to laundry room too. Cabinets over w/d for storage. We have a utility sink in the basement and the garage too. Never have a problem finding uses for any of them.
Carrying laundry up and down steps is fine. Just take it up or down on next trip up/down (which during the day is plenty). At some point we likely won’t want to do that but I am not ready for single floor living.
For sound, I would suggest that anyone building a house insulate certain interior walls. They have soundproofing insulation but its more expensive than regular insulation. Was 4-5 walls between certain rooms in our house (laundry room and rest of house, den/office and family room, bathroom and bedroom, etc.).
What do all of you Do with your utility sinks? I think we’ve had three before and very very rarely used any of them. I’ve rinsed off dirty dog harnesses and shoes in our current one. Stuck a mop in there temporarily to dry a bit. That’s about it.
The best use of one was to fill a small above ground pool for my kids one summer. I put the hose through the laundry room window. I think we wanted some hot water in it or something, lol. My memory has faded, but I remember doing it and that’s the only reason I can think of.
we use our laundry sink quite a bit - hand wash clothes, rinse off paintbrushes, wash off large items that don’t fit in other sinks (rather than drag upstairs to bathtub), rinse off brooms or mops, empty water buckets, etc. It is also the only sink in the basement (partially finished), so convenient to get water from when we are on that level.
Utility sink uses:
Bathe the dog.
Wash out paint brushes.
Soak clothes in Oxy
Line with newspaper and then spray waterproofing on boots/shoes
I’ve had both. Currently it’s located on the first floor as we come in from the garage (our primary bedroom is also on the first floor but not nearby). I don’t love it on the first floor because it’s loud - I usually have to close the door while it’s on because it’s hard to hear people talking, the TV, etc. Second floor was better, but noise was still an issue if someone was up late doing laundry.
Ideal location for me would be basement (thought I don’t have one) with a laundry chute/dumb waiter set up. Absent the basement, whatever other location would have to be somewhere that I can hide the mess of clothes. It would drive me batty to be dealing with clothes in the middle of my kitchen.
My husband designs and builds houses and does quite a few with 2 laundry set ups - one regular laundry room and then a smaller, stackable set off the primary bedroom closet.
One of my friends did that. She had a small nursery off her bedroom next to the master bath. They redid the master bath, incorporating the nursery to enlarge their bath and added a stackable W/D, keeping the original set downstairs.
The best laundry room I every had…for a laundry room…was in a rental we had while building our house. The room was about 14 x 16…no kidding. There was a HUGE table along one wall for folding and such. Plenty of room for an ironing board all set up, and a drying rack. Tons of cabinets. It was amazing! Only problem….it was in the basement of a very multi level large condo…bedrooms were actually three floors up! Carrying the stuff up and down was a PITA.
But I sure did love the size!
Most folks posting here don’t have giant families… how much laundry carrying do you actually do? I think no more than 5 baskets up and down a floor for me - per week. If you have kids still living at home, laundry carrying up and down is what the kids are for.
I do everything mentioned by @abasket in the utility sink–except I don’t wash out paint brushes. I also wash clothes items by hand in the sink. There’s a deck off the laundry utility sink and I plant herbs and tomatoes there and when I pick them, I’ll rinse them off in the sink before taking them downstairs. I’m sure there’s other things that I do, but can’t think of them off-hand. I do know, I wouldn’t want to be without the sink. It’s very convenient.
My H loves the utility deep laundry sink cleans the grill of his smoker and other messy, dirty jobs. When I soak the unglazed clay casserole dish, it also goes in the deep sink. Sometimes we use it to disk laundry, hand washables and other things.
Same thing happened to my neighbor. The hose broke on the second story washing machine while they were on vacation. The entire house was flooded. There were extensive repairs which required the family to move for months.
My laundry room is ground floor next to the garage.
We can turn off the water to the washing machine to prevent something like that. I always turn the water off if we are away for more than 24 hours. Also have a pan under the washer. I have had a flood but not because of a washing machine problem. It was an HVAC issue.
We turn off the water too if we are going for a longer trip. But it could happen if you’re just out for a weekend. I don’t know if the neighbors had a pan or what the drain situation was. Another neighbor discovered the leak when the water was running down the driveway. The entire inside of the house was wet and needed mold remediation and partial gutting.
In several houses, I’ve had laundry in basement, on the second floor, on the first floor near the kitchen and as a passthrough on the way to the garage. My least favorite was the passthrough.
When I was very young and before kids, the laundry was in the basement. I only did about 3 loads a week and it was no biggy to carry clothes up and down to the second floor.
When I had little kids, it was great to have the laundry on the second floor. I could toss the laundry in while the kids were playing or getting dressed.
I had laundry on the ground floor of a two storey house both when I was very pregnant and when I broke my leg (separate times). I needed someone else to carry laundry up and down the stairs.
My house is now one level and I have a separate laundry room near the garage and kitchen. I wish it were closer to the master bedroom.
One day my mom and I saw a house where the laundry room was up on the 2nd floor with the bedrooms and I said “nice”. She replied, “you want your laundry room where you are”. She was right!
Mine is on the main floor and that is where I am! (It is so easy to throw in a load and switch to the dryer, etc.)
Wash habits are very personal. I wash loads of kitchen towels and garden clothes and various rags I use for cleaning windows and wood floors on the ground floor. No desire to haul those up the stairs… someone might not need to do this because they use paper towels and swiffers.
We’ve moved so often over the years that we’ve had every location. The only one I didn’t like was in the basement; it was too many stairs and my condition means I fall frequently, not a good combo 
. The last house it was upstairs, and it worked perfectly for that stage of life because of competitive swimming. We went through a crazy amount of clothes/towels, and it saved me having to carry everything up and down the stairs. This house it’s in the mudroom just inside the garage (ranch), and I love it because we live by the lake; everyone can drop the wet/muddy shoes and clothes without dragging them through the house. We can drop all the towels/dirty clothes used when working out in the yard. We have a utility sink there and a double utility sink in the garage; we love them. DH uses the garage ones for filling pump sprayers or washing out brushes, etc. We use the other side of it to scrub the 5g pots when we do lowcountry boils. I guess for us it was more about the stage of life and our habits/use at the time.
I’ve lived with various spots. As a kid our laundry was in the garage but one had to go outside through the backyard to the garage. No fun when it was raining. We brought the clothes inside in the basket and folded on the coffee table.
My first house with my husband was a small house with a small laundry off the kitchen. That was easy. Next house was washer/ dryer plus sink in the garage just outside the door from the house. That wasn’t bad. The next two I’ve had a dedicated laundry room. My present house I’ve got a huge laundry room. I do laundry once a week, sort the clothes by color and wash temp on the floor. Fold and put away all in same day. The laundry room is near the kid wing of the house which was great when they were young. Now it’s just two of us and the laundry room is on the opposite end. My husband Carrie’s the laundry basket down in the morning. We wash and put clean clothes folded in basket and bring up and put away at the end of the day. It works great.
No basements here. I like my sink for cleaning dog bowls, emptying out cleaning buckets, washing my hands when I come in from the yard. My daughter has a set up where the washer hose drains into the laundry sink.