When I began designing the floor plan of this house, I was desperately trying to shoe-horn in a second floor laundry room. One of my biggest pet peeves in our current house is schlepping up and down 3 flights of stairs with armfuls of laundry.
Unfortunately, the second floor laundry either meant no ensuite bathroom for us, or no second floor guest room. We weren't willing to compromise on either, so the laundry went back to the basement.
Then I got this great idea of putting in a laundry chute! That would save me at least one direction of laundry carrying.
I decided to put it in the main bathroom since we had the space and it was pretty much directly above the laundry room 2 floors down.
Our guys had never heard of a laundry chute before so I had to Google "how to build a laundry chute" so I could show them what to do. There are apparently a number of ways to build one, but we opted to use ducting since it is cheap and simple. The main thing to consider with ducting though, is that any joints have to be carefully taped on the inside to prevent snagging of clothes on the sharp edges.
Ideally I would have liked the chute to be a bit bigger, but we were restricted by the distance between joists and I decided not to mess with any of that. Also, my friend told me that he used to slide down his laundry chute as a child!!! Could you imagine?! At least this one is too small to fit a kid.
There it goes, right down the wall behind the future kitchen cabinets.
And out into the laundry room!
We tested it with a thick sweatshirt and it worked like a charm. I'll have to get a laundry bin to put under there to hopefully avoid a big mound of dirty clothes in the corner.
Laundry chute eh? Fancy and super practical! I remember using one of these at my aunt's house in New Zealand. When we were kids we had so much fun sending laundry among many other things down the chute. It was almost like our "smuggling" tunnel. :-)
ReplyDeleteSo cute! I imagine our girls will get up to that sort of business as well. My middle daughter was disappointed that it didn't go both ways like the dumb waiter in The Spiderwick Chronicles. Next house! :-)
DeleteWonderful idea!!! My parent's house has a laundry chute. We used it every day growing up. It only goes from the main floor to the basement, so it is just an open wood structure. But it has a bottom to it with a tall opening along the front side so the clothes don't drop down everywhere. Hands down, the best idea ever!
ReplyDeleteThat's a great idea-- add a bottom to it. Although I'm sure ours would still be overflowing in no time. I've actually never seen another laundry chute in person, but have heard of so many people that had them growing up.
DeleteThe chute will get all the dirty clothes off the bedroom floors, saving you grief, but then retrieval of same will be a pain if they really want something back for quick handwashing.
ReplyDeleteWhile you are at it, do a bit of Upstairs Downstairs and put in a dumb waiter as you alluded in your first comment.
Also: do you have a wine cellar? Ask Almis for advice. I use cardboard boxes: he's a bit more sophisticated. Minimum is the "wine diamond" setup for all your grst Bordeaux and Burgundies....
A wine cellar is something that we might add later on. But to be perfectly honest, if we didn't have your regular emails (we really do follow your suggestions!), we'd likely be buying our same old favourites every time.
DeleteVery good points you wrote here..Great stuff...I think you've made some truly interesting points.Keep up the good work.
ReplyDeletelaundry chute
Cleantitude is a dry cleaning service App based in Toronto. laundry toronto
ReplyDelete