Design a laundry nook — five pieces, one open door-swing lane
A laundry nook is a 6×8 ft rectangle with one rule: nothing stands in front of an appliance door. Stack the washer and dryer to go vertical, put the utility sink beside them, pull the hamper and detergent cabinet down the side edges, and keep an open lane up the middle with a basket at its end. Every piece is in the RoomSketch3D catalog — search the names, place them in your own plan, and swing the doors in 3D.
Watch it
Design a laundry nook in 40 seconds
Every piece at its true size, clearances checked, then a walk around it in 3D. The list, sizes, and steps are below.
A laundry nook lives or dies on clearance. Washer doors, dryer doors, and cabinet doors all swing into the same few square feet — so the layout's one rule is that the machines get the far wall, the storage gets the side edges, and the middle stays an open lane.
The other trick is going vertical: stacking the washer and dryer turns two appliance footprints into one 27-inch column. Every piece below is in the RoomSketch3D catalog — search the exact names in the Furnish panel, place them in your own plan, and swing every door in 3D before you commit.
Or let the app place it: tap the Auto-furnish wand in the toolbar, drag a box over the area you want to use, type Laundry Nook in the search box and pick its card. Every piece lands against your walls, with a Fits or Tight badge for the space you drew — then edit anything. More in Auto-furnish.
What you'll need
- •Stackable Washer + Dryer (27″ wide, 76″ tall) — the vertical move
- •Utility Sink (24″ × 22″)
- •Hamper Cabinet (18″ × 18″)
- •Narrow Cabinet (18″ × 14″, 48″ tall) — the detergent tower
- •Storage Basket (16″ round)
- •A 6×8 ft nook — a wide closet, a hallway alcove, a garage corner
Step by step
- 1
Stack the appliances on the far wall
Search Stackable Washer + Dryer (27″ wide, 76″ tall) and set it against the far wall, on the left. Stacking is the vertical move that makes a 6×8 nook work — one footprint, two machines. Leave the whole area in front of it empty; both doors swing into that space.
The whole nook on the plan — machines on the far wall, storage down the sides, an open lane up the middle. - 2
Utility sink beside the machines
Search Utility Sink (24″ × 22″) and set it on the far wall to the stack's right — same wall, same plumbing run. It's the pre-soak, the hand-wash, and the mop bucket's home, one step from the washer door.
- 3
Pull the storage down the side edges
Search Narrow Cabinet — the detergent tower — and set it partway down the left edge, doors facing the lane. Search Hamper Cabinet and set it down the right edge, opposite. Pulled down the sides like this, neither one stands in front of an appliance door or the sink.
- 4
Basket at the end of the lane
Search Storage Basket and drop it at the near end of the middle lane. It's the staging spot — the clean load lands there on its way out, without blocking the walk to the machines.
- 5
Swing every door in 3D
Switch to 3D and open the nook in your mind: washer door, dryer door, cabinet doors, hamper lid. Each one needs its full arc plus room for you to stand beside it with a load in your arms. If anything would collide, slide the side pieces further down their edges — the lane is the layout.
The finished nook in 3D — every door has its full swing. - 6
Or let Auto-furnish place the Laundry Nook for you
Everything above can also be done in one go. Open your plan, tap the Auto-furnish wand in the toolbar and drag a box over the spot, tracing the walls you want the pieces against — at least 6 × 8 ft for this layout. In the Ideas list, type Laundry Nook in the search box and pick its card; if it isn't among the first six cards, tap Show more. A Fits badge means the layout fits the box you drew, Tight means it is up to about 12% too big and a piece may sit a little past an edge. The five pieces land against your walls, and Variation 1–5 offer other arrangements — mirrored, turned to another wall or corner, or with a piece swapped for a similar one; where it can, it skips arrangements that would land on furniture already in your plan. If the plan still looks empty after you pick the card, tap Variation 2 (or any other variation) and the pieces appear — a known glitch can leave the first variation undrawn. Tap View in 3D to check it, then Done: the whole placement is one undo step, and every piece stays editable. More in Auto-furnish.
Drawn over the top-left corner of a plain 10×12 ft room, the Laundry Nook lands in a few taps — five pieces, a choice of variations, every piece still editable.
Tips
Stacking is the whole strategy
Side-by-side machines need 54 inches of wall; the stack needs 27. In a 6-foot-wide nook, that difference is the utility sink — going vertical is what buys you a second wet-work station instead of a second appliance footprint.
Keep the wet wall together
Washer and sink share supply and drain lines, so putting them side by side on the far wall isn't just tidy — it's one plumbing run instead of two. Plan the layout around that wall and the rest of the nook is just storage.
Storage lives on the edges, never the end
The hamper and detergent tower sit partway down the side edges on purpose: doors face the lane, and nothing occupies the zone in front of a machine. If the nook is narrower than six feet, slide them further toward the entry rather than closer to the appliances.
Common mistakes
Storage in front of the appliance doors
A basket or hamper parked in front of the washer means moving it for every single load — and it always migrates back. The zone in front of each machine is door-swing territory; storage belongs on the side edges, pulled down toward the entry.
Side-by-side machines in a stackable space
Two 27-inch machines side by side eat the entire far wall and evict the sink. If the nook is 6 feet wide or less, stack — the vertical inches are free and the floor inches are not.
No landing spot for the clean load
Without the basket at the lane's end, clean laundry lands on top of the machines or on the floor. One 16-inch circle gives every load a staging spot on its way out of the nook.
Frequently asked questions
How much space does a laundry nook need?
This full version fits 6 × 8 feet — a wide closet or a hallway alcove. The minimum is the machine column plus its door swing: in a true closet, the 24-inch Compact Stackable Washer + Dryer with the doors opening into the hallway can work in under 3 × 3 feet.
What furniture makes up a laundry nook?
Five catalog pieces: Stackable Washer + Dryer, Utility Sink, Hamper Cabinet, Narrow Cabinet for detergent, and a Storage Basket. Search each name in the Furnish panel.
Can I swap pieces?
Yes — that's the point of planning it first. In a tighter closet, the 24-inch Compact Stackable Washer + Dryer trades capacity for three inches of wall; under front-loaders, a Laundry Pedestal raises the door to back-friendly height and adds a drawer; and a Wall-Mounted Dryer hung on the wall above a washer, with a Laundry Hanging Rail between them, keeps the floor clear (see Hang a dryer on the wall above the washer). The layout logic doesn't change: machines on the far wall, storage on the edges, lane in the middle.
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