COME CLEA N

Put the washer and dryer where they rightfully belong, in the laundry room. By SANHITA SINHA CHOWDHURY

Wash, dry, fold, iron, wear, and repeat. The vicious cycle of laundry is a thankless but essential chore and lack of organisation complicates the process. We rely on the moody sun to dry our clothes, stuff them unironed into cupboards where they get further wrinkled and cause havoc on a busy weekday morning. An ideal situation is one where all these disjoint bits come together in the form of a laundry room where everything has its rightful place. Put an unused corner to use to avoid chaos and make the mundane task seem less dreary.

In George Bernard Shaw’s 1894 comedy, Arms and the Man, the uncouth Major Petkoff tells his wife Catherine, in the midst of their perpetual banter, that civilised people do not hang their washing out for others to see. In India, our clothesline puts on a repeat show of yesterday’s clothes, choosing the evasive sun over a more hygienic, mechanical drying cycle. While washing machines have become a necessity, the washer- dryer pair is yet to make a full- fledged entrance. Differentiating between the two, Vishal Raman, National Business Development Manager, Electrolux says, “The washing cycle of a machine involves spin drying which removes moisture depending upon a speed of 100 per cent to 60 per cent. A dryer dries clothes up to 97 per cent.”

The washer- dryer duo however eats into space and demands its own niche station. Besides these two contraptions, a model laundry room will need a table top for sorting and folding clothes, a basin for scrubbing delicates and ‘ hand wash only’ items, storage space for detergents, baskets to separate dirty and washed clothes, a drying rack and an ironing board. If space is a constraint, opt for stackable washer and dryer units and install wall- mounted shelves. Your personal laundromat can also double up as an indoor potting or a pet washing area, if it has a utility sink.

“Put a laundry room where most of your dirty garments have a designated space and you do not have to lug them around,” says Mona Ross Berman, owner of a Philadelphia- based design firm. She recommends having some fun with this wishy- washy room: get creative with spirited oranges, blushing pinks and eclectic teals and spruce up the space.

Laundry rooms can be built according to the space available and typically have small footprints ( above); they can also serve multiple purposes by doubling up as a storage room or an office area ( below)