Given how much time you spend doing laundry, I think you should make it nice for yourself. Also, it will add value to your home should you decide to sell it.

In our new house, we have a laundry/mud room with the front loaders. We didn't put a counter over them though....we just use the tops.

If you have machines that are in good condition and work, keep using them. If you really want the counter in the future, then plan for it, but install it after your current machines die.

If it's in a basement with lots of space, then you can give yourself a generous area...put up the 2x4s and sheet rock, colorful paint, give yourself storage space and hanging space and folding space and lots of light. Be sure to finish the ceiling to really make it feel like a room. Key consideration is flooring...probably tile will be most durable and most water resistant. But you'll probably want a mat of some sort either entering the room or inside the doorway of the room so you won't track stuff onto the floor from the basement area.

We have a finished basement, and our laundry is down there. Had our builder finished the basement for us, they would have left the laundry in the unfinished part. I wanted a separate room for it, so when we hired our own contractor, he and my husband wanted to put in in the bathroom. I said no to that and figured out a way to have it be its own separate area.

I still have a top loading machine, b/c it works fine. I'm personally not sold on the front loaders (I have been to houses too often where there's a mildewy smell b/c the owners were not consistent about leaving the door open after doing wash).

I don't have pics at the moment, and am heading out for a bit, but I will try to take a pic later today and post it for you, to give you an idea of what we did. :)

I, too, have a basement laundry room with top loaders. Front loaders require a pedestal or they are too low for me, and they were way more expensive than my machines were when I bought them. I couldn't see any benefit. My sons have front loaders without pedestals...so not for me, except one son's is on the second floor with the bedrooms, which I would love.

My lr is pale yellow, has two hanging racks, a few shelves, double tub,
tile floors, and a long cupboard with a formica top for folding. Nice and bright, nothing fancy at all, but laundry is laundry, and I will always hate it no matter how nice my surroundings.

We have five finished rooms and a full bath in the basement, plus an unfinished junk/work/storage room. That may be the best room in the house!

We have a basement laundry room. It's nothing fancy and is only semi-finshed. The counter is some of the original 1950s Formica/laminate that was removed from the kitchen. DH built the shelves above it, and everything was sprayed white. The floor is peel and stick tiles.

I wouldn't bother replacing machines that work, but that's just me. My W/D are front loaders, but since the controls aren't on the front, we can't put a countertop over them. We do have to leave the washer door open, or it starts to smell. I fold the occasional load on top of the W/D, but generally I take laundry up to the family room, and fold while I watch TV with DH. He helps too!

Laundry Room Photos with Top Loading Machines

This is not top loading but it could be (no counter)

HTH!

Biochem's first photo (with the green walls) is laid out very much like the laundry room we put in our basement, although we didn't add cabinets. I had a much bigger sink in a longer counter - it didn't do me much good to have a small one there.

We also had louvered doors to the right, which separated the hot water heater and furnace from the laundry part, but kept them well ventilated. To the left was the door to a big bath and dressing area, because we had a pool, and also wanted a place to clean gardening dirt off us.

Beside that door, I added a tall table, made from a slab of butcher block and some tall metal legs. Instead of cabinetry, I skirted the sink counter and the table. I also put one of those hanging bars that folds up flat to the wall beside the folding table, and a pull-out drying rack over the sink counter.

My only disappointment was that I had a great plan to put a laundry chute from our master closet on the second floor straight down into the laundry room, and I could have done it, because when we split the HVAC system, I had a straight shot where the ductwork used to run right up the wall...but because it was in the corner of the house, the joists under the first floor were doubled up, and I couldn't get past them. Grrr!

Here our my pics: (Keep in mind, I haven't done any decorating yet...but here is the basic layout. Hope it helps. We didn't have a ton of room, but here's how we made it work.

Doors to LR:
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LR:
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Built In Shelf:
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I have a large laundry in the basement. It is not yet finished, but you can see where I am headed with it. We have an old house, so I am going with an old look there. I have older front loaders, but could have top loaders in that space.

This is the other end of the room with drying racks and my trolley cart, which I haven't decorated yet.

We plan to paint the duct work eventually. We had to retrofit air conditioning, which has eaten up an otherwise very attractive ceiling beamed ceiling.