Washing machines in the kitchen?!?

Ok, after perusing many housing and rental sites I've noticed a common theme: washing machines in the kitchen! What's up with that?

My first thought is: the clean clothes will get all covered with food as I'm trying to sort and fold them. My SECOND thought is: I have to bring my dirty undies into the kitchen, where we serve food! Gross!

Ok, is it just me? Is anyone else repulsed by the idea of dirty clothes near clean food?

What is more of an issue for me is having to take my clothes from the kitchen to the lounge where my drier is. PITA.

My parents lived in a place in the states that had the washer in the kitchen next to the sink and the drier was in the pantry next to the oven and fridge. You use what space and hook-ups you have I guess.

Really though, how different is it from having a utility room off the kitchen? You'd still have to take the clothes through to kitchen.  I don't see an issue - unless you are going to store dirty clothes in the kitchen, but I can't imagine doing that.

A lot of houses don't have a utility room.  Get used to having less rooms.

Why would they get covered in food?  Why would you have food out at the same time you were sorting your clean clothes?  I can only see it being an issue were you to put the clean clothes on the kitchen counters for some reason.

Also I don't think the 2 seconds it takes to put dirty clothes from your clothes hamper to your washing machine is going to infect anything.

Our washing machine is in the hallway... We live in Winchester. But yeah, it is common that the w/d is in the kitchen. It's not so bad. When I was here last year fir 3 months and stayed in Woking, my roomie's flat had the w/d in the kitchen. The kitchen was HUGE though, so it was at one end of the kitchen. I'd just grab the load and throw it in, and when it's done, went into the spare bedroom to sort and dry them on the racks in there. It is different but I got used to it. The only thing I did NOT thoroughly enjoy was waiting all day and night for the clothes to dry so I could wear them. Haha.

What's worse, bringing your own dirty underwear to your own washing machine that's in your own kitchen...or bringing your dirty underwear to the laundrette and washing them in a PUBLIC machine where everyone else is also washing their dirty underwear with God knows what on them? Fecal soup anyone? I don't even want to know....

I've never really given it a thought. How dirty is your underwear, anyway?!?! 

Ok <scrubbing "fecal soup" image from brain>

It just seemed really odd to me

I guess you're right, and we'll have to get used to scaling down / doing things differently. The thing is, here in the States my husband is a stay-at-home parent, and he's not too great with the laundry side of things, so at any given time we have an overflowing hamper with stinky laundry in it, hidden away in our laundry room. i just don't want that in my kitchen!

where do people keep their dirty clothes hampers? I may need to train him in a whole new system!

I kept my hamper in the bedroom, next to my dresser. I carried the dirty laundry into the kitchen to the washing machine. Our drying rack was in our bedroom (because we had space there), but in other other places I lived it was in the kitchen, living room, or conservatory. We also had a clothes line outside, so the majority of laundry was dried there. Any folding was done in the bedroom. 

where do people keep their dirty clothes hampers? I may need to train him in a whole new system!

Ive always kept my clothes hamper in my bedroom- maybe my mother raised me weird.... MIL keeps hers for son & 9 yr old in the hall. Clean clothes are deposited on the owners bed.

I have a washing basket I use to move clothes from being dirty to being clean and dried.

If you dont have a dryer, look into one otherwise clothes will dry from every imaginable place possible during the winter months.

with front loading washers/dryers and laundry baskets, you'll find that you don't have clothes in the kitchen much at all. sorting, folding, etc will happen elsewhere - usually the bedroom.

this thread just reminds me of a woman I knew with an Aga. it was not unusual, especially in the winter, to go to her house and find freshly washed and folded laundry, including knickers, drying neatly on top of the Aga.

What is more of an issue for me is having to take my clothes from the kitchen to the lounge where my drier is. PITA.

My parents lived in a place in the states that had the washer in the kitchen next to the sink and the drier was in the pantry next to the oven and fridge. You use what space and hook-ups you have I guess.

Really though, how different is it from having a utility room off the kitchen? You'd still have to take the clothes through to kitchen.  I don't see an issue - unless you are going to store dirty clothes in the kitchen, but I can't imagine doing that.

That's where my utility room is.  Unless I want to take my clothes outside and walk halfway around the house to get to that door, I take my dirty clothes through the kitchen.

At my old house, the laundry basket was on the 2nd floor, the washer on the ground floor and the dryer on the 2nd floor.  2 flights of steps up and down all day equals not fun.

I also thought it was a little weird but I guess when you consider the plumbing issues, it does make sense to put it close to other water devices (although I'd probably prefer it in the bathroom if that were the case).

I kind of felt the same as you initially but like the others pointed out, most people don't do a huge amount of sorting, folding, etc in the kitchen.

Just as a heads up if you're not used to doing laundry in the UK, if you guys have trouble keeping up with laundry in the US, you might be in for a shock.  The washers are about half the size and take (at least) twice as long to wash.  Laundry is (at a minimum) four times harder to keep up with.

with front loading washers/dryers and laundry baskets, you'll find that you don't have clothes in the kitchen much at all. sorting, folding, etc will happen elsewhere - usually the bedroom.

this thread just reminds me of a woman I knew with an Aga. it was not unusual, especially in the winter, to go to her house and find freshly washed and folded laundry, including knickers, drying neatly on top of the Aga.

What is an Aga, exactly? I was looking at rental houses in the Newcastle area and one had an Aga. It looks sort of like an old woodstove built into a brick corner. Come to think of it, there was no cookstove in the kitchen photos...

No matter where I've lived (US, UK) I've always had my washer in the kitchen. I come from San Fran though where you don't get much for your money in terms of living space. So I'm quite used to it. What I do is, I put the clothes into the washer as they get dirty and when it builds up to a full load I do the laundry. That way there are no baskets and things with dirty laundry on show. Especially now where we live in a studio and there is no bedroom, this comes in handy.

What is an Aga, exactly?

It's the brand name of a range of big, expensive, very heavy cast iron stoves, much beloved of the English upper classes. The ones I have seen burn fuel all the time and tend to be hot all of the time and therefore not cheap to run. Although I think you can get ecological ones these days.

You can get 2,3, or 4-oven models. This is a two-oven model: