apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

A fridge in the dining room would almost be as bad as a bathtub in a kitchen. Or possibly worse. I can actually see there being something fun about a bathtub in a kitchen.

Ventless washer/dryers are very slow. They are also not very green.

Just go to the coin laundry. It takes a couple of hours but with a ventless washer/dryer you'll feel like you're constantly washing. Or use the ventless washer/dryer money to pay for your laundry to be done by the pound.

is there room in the bathroom for a W/D unit?

refrigerators should definitely stay in the kitchen, unless you can incorporate a small one into a bar-like breakfront. even then, as maxwell points out, you're moving the fridge away from the stove and food prep area, which makes cooking less convenient.

The convenience of having a washer/dryer in the apartment would be outweighed by the inconvenience of having a refrigerator outside of the kitchen.

Consider putting the washer and dryer or combo unit in the dining room. If you're creative with wood, you can turn the tops of the units into a sideboard of sorts by placing a nicely cut and finished piece of maple or birch plywood or perhaps butcherblock on the tops of the unit(s). A curtain, doors or other camouflage can hide the appliances when they're not in use.

My own washer and dryer are in my dining room and resided for 15 years in the dining room of my previous apartment. They sit stacked in a corner next to the wall partition with the kitchen. In the fall I will commence work on a cabinet enclosure which will match a set of Ikea Pax - Nexus birch cabinets in the dining room. When completed, one wall of the dining room will have floor to ceiling birch veneered cabinet storage plus a laundry closet.

I don't agree with Mr. Green. Laudromats are a big hassle, inconvenient, expensive, and have the constant risk of clothing loss. If you can accommodate the appliances and engineer the connections it's well worth the effort. There is nothing better than being able to do your laundry at home and getting something accomplished while it's running.

ok i might sound a bit off here but.
is it that important to have a washer and dryer in the apartment? isnt there a laundry mat near you?
you are better off doing that

as far as the fridge...in one of my old places i once put the fridge in the dining room. big mistake. ruined the floor ( leaked) ..looked out of place. UGH .
we got an under the counter fridge and build a custom made bar over it and it solved our issue.

Seriously... I think that dropping off one's laundry and having the people there do it has much less of a human cost than doing it yourself. They've already alloted real estate space for it, they've found people who are perfectly willing to do the work in the kind of bulk that makes it worthwhile, and it frees you up to do other things.

The folks who run the cleaners have also had to learn a lot about getting out stains of things of all kinds of things that I've never needed or wanted to learn, so they are much more qualified than me to take care of my clothes.

Their other customers are so much pickier than I am, that I am the grateful recipient of the benefits of the troubles they've had with those pickier people, so my clothes look MUCH better than I would ever have the energy or inclination to do myself.

I consider the price of laundry to be kind of like a small tax I pay for the privelege of having a job that pays me enough to expect me to look nice.

i give my laundry a list of the items in my bag, and instruction on what needs what. For me it comes out to the same amount as if i went and sat there 3 hours and did it myself.

and around the holidays i give them handmade aprons which they were year round. :) they hook me up with extra softener now .

But there are times i actually do it myself. i go with my bevy of interior design mags and sit while my wash gets done.

move back to the suburbs if you want a washer and dryer in your apartment. this is the stupidest question I have ever seen on this site.

I once lived in a studio apartment that had a relatively spacious (say 8x8 foot) vestibule which contained the fridge, right in front of the kitchen. I smacked into that fridge practically every morning during that first walk to the bathroom, usually without my glasses on. Don't do it!

I would also advise you to exercise caution with your W/D placement. I have a stackable ventless unit from Eurotech and although it does a perfectly acceptable job with the laundry (and is not slow) it is rather loud, and has a troubling tendency to "walk" during the final spin cycle. Units like these are really better off in closets, if at all possible, unless you get a really nice high-end one that doesn't have these problems.

I don't think it's a stupid question - I would love to have a washer/dryer in the apartment. I used to send my wash out, now I never do as things came back stained with something bright orange (I don't own any bright orange items so possibly a crayon was left in the machine or whatever) and also they use way too much soap and some things just dissolved due to the use of too much bleach. I'm quite picky about my laundry so I just do it myself, but I'd give up a closet (and I don't really have one to spare) to have the units in my apartment.

BUT, I don't like the idea of the fridge in the dining room as a trade off. Agree that it's wierd.

I'm with everyone else on the fridge-in-living-room being a bad idea. But I'm also with Curtis that there's maybe something a little bit fun about the tub-in-kitchen thing.

I once had a mini-fridge in my living room/bedroom/dining room in a studio when I was in college in New York. I liked everything else about that studio, but the fridge location was rough. It's hard to make it look anything but really out of place. And it's hard to entertain, it feels a little awkward somehow. Could you put just a washer somewhere in your apartment? And then line dry everything else? I've seen that done in other countries and it might save you a little space.

I think Matilda's suggestion isn't a bad one. You could do some nice built-in shelving and then put the washer-dryer in a closet.

whee .. excitement and anger about washer/dryer. I bring my wash to the laundromat and have them do it, but I always find myself looking wistfully at my friends' washer/dryer when I'm at their apartment. So I don't think that this is a stupid question.

My kitchen is so tiny that the regular fridge supplied by the landlord doesn't fit in the space designed for it. Instead, it sits at the end of the counter poking out into the dining area (not dining room because it just isn't a room). I wish I had the cash to drop on a smaller fridge so everything would fit in the kitchen, but I'll also admit to loving the full-sized fridge I have.

I'm convinced that there are ways to make a refrigerator non-obtrusive in a dining room. Perhaps converting an armoire to house it? Pull off the back so it can vent?

I'd love to see a floor plan and a picture of the rooms in question - thinking about this in the abstract is harder than when you can see the particulars.

When I lived in Manchester and had meetings in London, I used to borrow a friend's tiny flat in White City. It was a housing association property on an estate originally built for women widowed after the first world war. It was really sweet - and the bath was in the kitchen beneath a drop down table.
On topic - I'd definitely prefer it to be the washer dryer in the dining room (assuming the plumbing-in is feasible)

The suggested fridge-in-dining-room does sound stupid, but it's equally silly to tell you to go to the Laundromat if you're willing to live with a fridge in your dining area for the convenience of having an in-house laundry!
Another alternative is getting a washer/dryer combo unit (or all-in-one). These units fit under the counter (like the fridge that is being suggested). They are common in Europe where the household infrastructure doesn't always accomodate monster-sized American appliances (it seems our clothes must be bigger or maybe we just let the loads pile up?). And though a bit slower and unable to do both tasks at once, they can do a fine job for a small household. And it could go in the kitchen (even stacked with a U/C fridge) or even go in a closet, if perchance you could get plumbing through an adjacent bathroom wall.

Here's a place where you can get a mat to use for your fridge and for your washer --and dishwasher, too.

http://www.hvaa.com/oil_drip_mat.htm

There are so many things that are probably in your kitchen now that can look quite presentable in the dining room, (Move your dishes to a china hutch or closed cabinet? Even a closed cabinet for a pantry might work.) and that would then give you the room you need for the fridge. Fridge in the dining room is no way to live.

are you in new york? if so, there are tons of laundromats that happily pick up your dirty clothes and return with them later (usually within a day or two) clean and folded. it's really a nice experience.

i used this type of service when i lived in an east village apartment (hovel) with my shower next to my kitchen sink. and though i'm sure having a fridge in your living room wouldn't be nearly as atrocious as that, there is a reason everyone puts the refrigerator in the kitchen.

I would absolutely get an ventless combo w/d to go under a kitchen counter, and get a small fridge unit to go above it - or a fridge drawer. Either option would be better than moving the fridge into your dining room. Aesthetics and convenience aside, it will most certainly ruin the floor at some point.

In Europe where live-in kitchens are popular, it's common to hide a refrigerators in a bank of built in cabinets (60cm wide x 60 cm deep). They look like cabinetry rather than appliances, especially when you place 2 or 3 side by side.

Here's one that ikea does:
http://www.ikea.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?topcategoryId=15576&catalogId=10103&storeId=9&productId=21915&langId=-22&categoryId=15728&chosenPartNumber=S29806187e

Here's another example (the fridge would be in the same bank of cabinets containing the oven, on the far left where there are vents in the plinth.
http://www.bruynzeelkeukens.nl/page.php?menu=4&page=33

Thanks for all the good advice. The fridge will stay in place.
I don't live in NYC. I'm moving to a small town for med school and I see doing laundry at odd hours in my future.

I would keep the washer/dryer and do what ag said, it's a great solution, you'll have a very busy lifestyle with med school, etc. etc. Good luck with the move.

to the person who said the ventless washer/dryer combo isn't green - that's incorrect. they use a smaller amount of water than any other washer - some states even offer rebates to the buyers for that reason. and mine has a high energy efficiency rating.

the laundry service where i live doesn't even use soap! yuck