The laundry half of the laundry room

In engineering (and design), geometric constraints refer to limitations on a single entity (size, location) and dependencies on pairs of entities ↔ (distance, arc angle). Our laundry room was a great exercise in satisfying geometric constraints!

The Constraints

• Door frame
  • unmovable, 32” wide opening
• Premade cabinet
  • 24x24x90” (in a 93” tall room)
  • 2” buffer from wall for recessed outlet
• Stacked washer/dryer
  • overflow drain pipe is in the floor
  • dryer ducting overlaps cabinet
• Storage
  • accessible laundry supplies
  • space for bulky bedding

The Process

Step 1: French Doors

The narrowest manufactured French doors are 48” wide, so I installed 32” wide bifold window doors instead. The two 16” door slabs swing open with 3.5” hinges and stay shut with ball catch hardware.

Challenge	Solution
Doors are unfinished.	Pine was sanded, primed, sanded, and painted twice!
Unused bifold track shortened door slabs by 1.5”.	Added strips of wood to the top of the door frame to fill the gap.
Standard door knob bore holes (2 1/8”) don’t fit.	Installed antique mortise-style door knobs instead.
Interior light switch is now blocked.	Relocated switch to hallway using a wireless receiver kit.

Step 2: Premade Ikea Pantry Cabinet

I used a premade 24x24x90” Ikea Sektion cabinet because of the flexibility for shelves and cabinet doors.

Challenge	Solution
Cabinet is 90” high in a 93” high room.	Build a 3” base instead of standard 4.5” legs
Regular outlet is inaccessible.	Leave 2” gap from wall to fit an interior recessed outlet.
Dryer plug point is blocked.	Install a removable access panel.
Dryer vent ducting overlaps cabinet.	Cut cabinet to accommodate!
9x9x3” security box blocks cabinet front.	Install shorter cabinet doors.

Half cabinet access. The doors to the room must be fully open when I’m entering and exiting with a laundry basket. Luckily, Ikea makes 12” wide cabinet doors, so I can access the left half of the cabinet (and pull out this 9” organizer) even with the French doors open!

Inside-cabinet outlet. Thanks to our recessed outlet extension, our handheld vacuum finally has a home! I filled the predrilled shelf peg holes with removable plastic plugs to allow for shelf height switch-ups later on as needed.

Step 3: Custom Cabinetry Built-Ins

I hired a carpenter to finish the custom cabinet above the stacked washer/dryer before the start of the school year. Rather than moving the washer/dryer out of the room beforehand, they built cabinetry around the appliances in place, which led to some foreseeable problems…

Problem 1: The dryer smells like fire!

The evening that my carpenter left, I tried to dry a wet floor towel (that our kiddo had dumped bath water onto). A horrible burning smell and steam started to fill the room!

I called the Dryer Vent Wizards (highly recommend!), and they found and fixed a couple of problems the next morning…

Unfortunately, this led to another new problem…

Problem 2: The washer is leaking!

Because the washer/dryer are screwed together in the back and could not be lifted without damaging the cabinets, we needed to pull the connected units straight out, which destroyed the drip pan front lip. Our washer (like many older, “high efficiency” load-sensing units) sometimes has an excess suds overflow leak. We live in a 3rd-floor condo, and I panicked seeing water all over the floor!

Getting a new drip pan in there was tricky!

Idea!	Womp Womp
move W/D in separately	screwed together in the back
drop W/D in together	no vertical clearance
slide W/D in with the drip pan underneath	drain pipe sticks out of the floor

My solution!

1. Cut the front off a new appliance drip pan, predrill drain hole, and install it around drain pipe first.
2. Slide the stacked washer/dryer into place over drip pan.
3. Cut another new drip pan to get front lip + 6”.
4. Lift the front of washer/dryer with manual jacks and push new drip pan front into place.
5. Duct-tape the drip pan halves together and seal with clear silicone caulk.

Step 4: Organization

I always planned for the cabinetry in this room to store extra comforters (for guests) , specialty recycling (textiles, electronics) , donations, extra air filters , tissues and toilet paper . I also now hide wrapped gifts in the top shelf bins .

I found these extra-deep cloth bins, bin clip labels, and fantastic compact dry racks, all of which are working out perfectly in this 24” wide cabinet!

Cost breakdown

Achievement unlocked! For the first time ever, I was actually able to save money by reusing supplies that I already had on hand! For this project, I reused my oscillating multitool, orbital sander, tabletop BladeRunner saw, and trigger clamps. I even had enough wood putty, wood glue, paintable caulk* (and caulk gun), clear silicone sealant caulk*, white duct tape, Rust-Oleum white primer for plastic, Benjamin Moore Fresh Start primer, color-matched pink and white semi-gloss paint, grippy contact paper, and glue dots leftover from previous projects !

*Sealing the top of a caulk tube with a metal screw keeps it from drying out.

Check out how I finished the utility half of the laundry room, too! Feels great to have this tiny and (now) amazingly functional room complete!

Shilpa Kobren is the Associate Director of Rare Disease Analysis at Harvard Medical School where she focuses on analyzing genomic sequencing data with patient clinical information to derive insights into human diseases. Shilpa lives in an 1890s urban apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts with her husband and two energetic toddlers. She retains her sense of peace amid the chaos by creating and iteratively improving systems that optimize daily efficiency in her family's constrained living space.