Laundries
Smart solutions
Toni Roberts of Kitchen Architecture says that while laundries aren’t a showpiece, her clients still want them to be beautiful and pleasant to be in. She says clever fittings that help are laundry hampers, pull-out ironing boards, airing cupboards with ventilated slatted shelving for linen storage, and overflow storage for indoor gardening and shoe cleaning products. “Pull-out taps work well as they enable buckets to be filled independent of the sink, and a drainer tray enables wet handwashing to be transferred easily and is a practical wringing surface.”
Reducing energy consumption is important to many homeowners, and appliance manufacturers are answering the need, for example Miele’s range of washers and dryers use 63 and 71 percent less energy respectively than the most energy-efficient models available 20 years ago.
THIS PAGE 1 Designer Natalie Du Bois of Du Bois Design’s clients wanted a natural look for this laundry, achieved with a mix of bead-blasted European oak and grey tongue-andgroove cabinets; it also needed to have good storage and a butler’s sink “big enough to bathe a small dog”.
2 Toni Roberts of Kitchen Architecture designed an accessible laundry appliance stack to be hidden within this kitchen using a pull-out shelf to rest a basket on and a tall drawer nearby for cleaners and buckets; the owner calls it her “small miracle”.
3 Natalie Du Bois created a classic look for this laundry to match the rest of the house and concealed the appliances in the cabinets: “It could pass as a scullery room if you didn’t realise there were appliances hidden behind the doors.”