How We Fit a Stacked Washer and Dryer in a Narrow Laundry Room: LG + Ferguson Home

If you have a narrow laundry room and you’re trying to figure out whether a stacked washer and dryer will actually work, the short answer is yes, and it will probably give you more usable room than the side-by-side setup you have now.

Disclosure: This Post is Sponsored by LG and Ferguson Home. Contains affiliate links. All opinions are my own.

We went from a side-by-side washer and dryer to a stacked LG WashTower, which we ordered through Ferguson Home. Even though the room itself did not get one inch wider, stacking the units completely changed how we could use the space. We ended up with more storage and enough room to add a bench and hooks, so the space works as a mudroom, too. Here’s everything we did, what I’d do again, and the one feature that sold me on this unit.

Why we didn’t widen our narrow laundry room

We looked into it. Our laundry room sits between the garage, the office, and the kids’ room, so making it wider meant knocking down walls that touch three other spaces. That means city permits, and it means the whole project sits still while we wait.

We ran the numbers on time and decided no. The room is narrow, but not impossibly so, and delaying everything else in the house for a few extra inches was not worth it. So we kept the footprint exactly as it was and got smarter about what went inside it.

If you’re standing in your own laundry room right now doing the same math, that’s my honest take. Work with the walls you have. You can get almost everything you want without moving them.

Getting rid of the laundry room sink (and why I don’t miss it)

Our old layout had a sink. We had it for years, and if I’m being honest, we barely touched it. Maybe a handful of times. It sat there taking up an entire section of wall for something we did not use.

So we took it out. That one decision is what made everything else possible. Pulling the sink freed up a whole run of the room, and instead of replacing it with more cabinets, we turned it into a bench with hooks above it.

Now the kids drop their backpacks there when they come home from school, and there’s somewhere to actually sit down when you’re putting your shoes on or pulling them off. The laundry room and the mudroom became the same room, and we absolutely love it!

Why we chose a stacked washer and dryer over side by side

I want to be clear that this was not only about square footage. I have LOVED the look of stacked laundry for a long time, even in houses with enormous laundry rooms that have plenty of width to spare.

Here’s why… When your washer and dryer are side by side, they eat a long stretch of wall, and you get nothing back above them except awkward space. Stack them, and that same wall opens up for tall cabinets, or a folding counter, or both. You get vertical storage instead of horizontal sprawl.

In a narrow room, that math matters even more. We got a full-height cabinet, a tilt-out hamper, and a bench out of a room that used to hold a washer, a dryer, and a sink nobody used.

Why we went back to LG

We have been an LG family for a long time. Our clothes come out clean and spotless, and we’ve never had a reason to look elsewhere. It’s the same reason we kept Sub-Zero, Wolf, and Cove in the kitchen through the renovation. We already knew we loved them, so we bought the newer versions instead of gambling on something unfamiliar.

I did shop around. I looked at a lot of other options online during planning, and nothing made me feel anything. I kept coming back to LG.

When we went to the Ferguson Home showroom, their design team pulled up the WashTower and told me it would fit our space perfectly. They were right. That’s the part I really valued about working with Ferguson: their team looked at our actual dimensions and layout and told us what would work, instead of just handing us a catalog.

The one WashTower feature that sold me

The control panel sits in the middle, between the washer and the dryer. On most stacked units, the controls are up on top of the dryer, which means you’re reaching over your head every single time you want to start a load or change a setting. If you’re not tall, it’s genuinely annoying. On the WashTower, everything is at normal reach height, right in the middle where your hands already are.

The best part is the kids can use it. They can run their own laundry without me lifting them or doing it for them. That was the deciding factor for me, more than any spec on the page.

What the LG WashTower is actually like to live with

A few honest notes after using it daily.

• The steam setting on the dryer. This is my favorite feature. I’m not going to tell you clothes come out looking like you took them to the dry cleaner, because they don’t. But when I run the steam cycle, things come out noticeably less wrinkled, and it makes a real difference on the stuff I’d otherwise have to press. If I forget to turn it on, it dries like a normal dryer. So it’s a feature you have to actually remember to use, and it’s worth remembering.

• Pods or liquid, your choice. The washer takes both. I use pods most of the time and liquid occasionally. Nice not to be locked into one.

• It’s quiet. Really quiet. The laundry room opens toward the hallway and the office, and it doesn’t intrude.

• The design is sleek and not bulky. It reads as modern and doesn’t dominate the room, which matters a lot when the room is narrow to begin with.

Does a stacked washer and dryer only make sense in a small laundry room?

Quick sidebar because I get asked about these constantly: the canisters are these ones from Amazon, and they’ve held up so well. Everything stays airtight, they stack neatly, and I can see exactly when we’re running low on something instead of finding out mid-load.

No, and this surprises people. Plenty of families with large laundry rooms put two WashTowers side by side so they can run multiple loads at once without waiting, or they place one tower next to a long counter for folding and pressing.

So if you have a big laundry room and you’ve been assuming stacked units are a compromise for people short on space, they aren’t. You just spend the space you save on something more useful than a second appliance footprint.

How to plan laundry cabinets in a narrow room

The cabinets came from the same custom company that did our closets, garage cabinets, laundry room, and mudroom. Here’s the piece of advice from them that I think about the most.

They told us not to run the cabinetry past a certain point in the room, because that stretch is the walkway through to the garage. If we’d filled the whole wall, we would have had beautiful storage and a hallway too tight to carry a laundry basket through. So the cabinets stay narrow and stop where they need to stop. And the WashTower’s width happened to fit the remaining run perfectly.

If you’re planning a narrow laundry room, here’s the order I’d do it in:

1. Mark your walkway first. Before you think about a single cabinet, figure out the path people actually take through the room and protect it.
2. Measure the appliance opening that’s left. Whatever’s left after the walkway is what your washer and dryer have to fit into, not the other way around.
3. Decide what you can give up. For us it was the sink. Be honest about what you actually use.
4. Go vertical everywhere you can. Tall cabinets and a stacked unit instead of long low runs.
5. Build storage into the dead spots. Our tilt-out hamper lives in cabinetry that would otherwise have been wasted depth.
6. Save room for one soft thing. A bench, a cushion, somewhere to sit. It’s what makes it feel like a room instead of a utility closet.

The tilt-out hamper is the thing everyone asks about

It’s custom, built by our cabinet company. Three bins behind a cabinet front that tilts out, so all the sorting happens behind a closed door, and the room stays clean-looking.

This is the single feature people message me about most. If you’re doing custom cabinets anyway, ask for it. It costs very little extra compared to what it does for the day-to-day.

How I organized the laundry cabinet

Everything inside is in clear canisters with labels, and I’ll save you the search: the canisters came from Amazon, and the labels were already included. I did not make them.

What’s in ours:

• Dryer balls
• Laundry pods
• Bath salts
• Dryer sheets in a wider flat container
• Lint rollers standing up in small woven baskets
• Folded towels in matching baskets on the lower shelves
• Laundry scent boosters and sprays on the top shelf

The reason I like the canisters is not only that they look good, though they do. It’s that everything is visible, so I can see at a glance when we’re low on pods instead of discovering it mid-load. I’m doing a whole separate post on how the cabinet is organized, so I’ll link that here once it’s up.

The wallpaper

The pattern is Noble Beasts, and we got it from Wallpaper-N-More in Scottsdale, which is where we’ve bought almost all the wallpaper in our house.

Dark, moody animal portraits in a laundry room is a bold thing to do. I know that. But this is a small room you pass through constantly, and small rooms are exactly where you should take the risk. Nobody regrets a laundry room that makes them smile.

If you’re not local to Arizona, there are similar animal print papers you can order online: this one, this one, and this one.

FAQs

Will a stacked washer and dryer fit in a narrow laundry room?
In most cases, yes. A stacked unit needs far less wall width than a side-by-side pair, which is what makes it work in narrow rooms. Measure your walkway clearance first, then measure the opening that’s left, and check that against the unit’s width and depth. Also confirm your door swing and your ceiling height before you order.

Is the LG WashTower control panel really easier to reach?
Yes, and it’s the feature I’d point to first. The controls sit between the washer and dryer rather than on top of the dryer, so you’re not reaching over your head. Kids can operate it on their own.

Does the steam setting actually reduce wrinkles?
It does, though it’s not the same as pressing or dry cleaning. Clothes come out noticeably less wrinkled when you use it. If you forget to select it, it dries normally, so you do have to remember to turn it on.

Should I keep the sink in my laundry room?
Only if you use it. We had one for years and rarely touched it, and removing it gave us the space for a bench and hooks. Think honestly about the last six months before you commit that wall to a sink.

Can I combine a laundry room and a mudroom in one narrow space?
Yes, and I’d recommend it if the room connects to your garage or your entry. Going with a stacked unit and tall cabinets frees up enough wall for a bench and hooks, which is really all a mudroom needs.

Final Thoughts

I hope this helped if you’re in the middle of planning your own laundry room. And I want to say one more thing about the stacked unit, because it’s the decision I feel strongest about.

Whether your room is narrow like ours or wide open with space to spare, I’d tell you to go stacked. I really would. Going compact gave us so much more than I expected, and none of it was about the appliances. It was the tall cabinet we wouldn’t have had room for. The tilt-out hamper. The bench where my kids drop their backpacks. All of that came from not committing an entire wall to two big machines sitting side by side.

That’s the part I’d want somebody to tell me before I started. A washer and dryer are not the point of a laundry room. They’re just what has to be in it. The less space they take, the more room you have for everything that actually makes the room work.

If you’ve done your laundry room, what would you do differently? And if you’re still in the planning stage, what’s the part you’re stuck on?

Love,

Sherry XOXO