In the 1950s when my house was built, the people designing the living spaces likely never washed clothes. Sure, they probably used the utility sink, in the room where they also placed the washing machine and dryer, to clean paint brushes or wash the dog. But really, how often do you actually clean paint brushes or wash the dog for that matter? Those tasks happen infrequently. Whereas laundry is one of those never-ending chores, like washing dishes and cooking. Laundry happens all the time.

All the damn time! Someone gathers the piles of dirty clothes, which rarely make it into a hamper. Someone picks up pants, holds them up and shakes out the underwear from where a kid has hastily removed them together before jumping into the shower. Someone turns the pant legs right side out. Someone gets socks from scattered and sundry places and unballs them. Someone sorts the soiled laundry into appropriate piles, usually on the floor near the washing machine. Out of sight.

Despite the fact that someone is always doing laundry, it is the kind of work that no one is supposed to be seen doing. Even in my childhood home, which was built in the late 1970s, our washer and dryer was in an unfinshed part of our basement, behind a louvered door, where someone had to disappear into a cramped dark room with a basket of dirty clothes and deal with them. (note the deliberate use of indefinite pronouns)

But now, my 1950s laundry room has been brought into the 21^st century. The first thing I did to enable this transformation was purchase a designer set of matching stackable front loading washer and dryer machines, the kind they began manufacturing near the end of the twentieth century. Whirlpool and other manufactures figured out that design could be an innovation, and dramatically boosted sales when they started making their machines pretty.

No one spends that much money on something that pretty to put behind the steps, so I didn’t just remove the door to my old laundry room, I had them take out the whole wall. I unified the space with flooring, laid longwise to pull the eye toward the further end of the room. I put in a clean new awning window. I purchased DIY cabinets that fit neatly into a narrow space beside the machines. I found some ceramic and stone tile remnants at the Re-store to use as backsplash. And I spent extra to get a drawer, rather than a cabinet, in the base for the utility sink. Stuff put in cabinets beneath utility sinks disappear and never get used because you can’t see or access it easily. Drawers are better than cabinets. Just a few details remain unfinished. Now, my laundry is open, spilling into the more visible outer space at the base of the stairs.

Laundry work should be treated more like we have come to treat cooking, as an essential part of clean, healthy living. It’s not an after thought, but a deliberate, necessary part of the way we design and arrange our lives.