There are two trains of thought in where to locate a laundry area.

1) locate it where you will be through out the day in the house so it is easy to change loads, 2) locate it where the dirty clothes are generated so the clothes do not have to be carried long distances.

In my personal experience I have found in carrying clothes a long distance, the 'distance' is really not very long.

As long as you have the room and the ability to hide it well (behind doors) it should work. I have a stackable unit downstairs in a walk in closet and our main laundry room upstairs (where all the bedrooms are), I love having 2 units, it beats walking up and down the stairs with laundry.

makes great sense, teach the kids to keep up with the laundry!

yes a real luxury, not over kill. Love it!

A compact unit in the master sounds really efficient if you have the space. Kids grow up, so at some point, your downstairs laundry will be redundant. However, kids grow up, so will you downsize when they are gone?

IMO a main floor laundry is IMO the perfect choice it is where you are during the time you do laundry so one trip with the dirty one trip with the clean not many trips un and down every time a load needs to be dealt with I have had laundry on the upper , the basement and now the main floor I love my main floor laundry and honestly 2 make no sense to me just another puzzle of what got washed where .

I think two laundries is fine. Especially as you age. What gets washed where? That’s why we have brains.

Hmm. I don't know about you, but I prefer my bathroom to be more of a sanctuary and less of a reminder of the chores I need to do. I'd keep the laundry downstairs and out of the master bath.

We considered putting a stackable in a closet outside my parents’ bathroom in their kater years. It would have made their and their caregiver’s life a bit easier mainly for bed and bath linens, but also for, um, emergency laundry.

While not necessary, having two laundry spaces in a house doesn't seem unreasonable. Anyone who is turned off by having a second laundry in a master bath could easily replace the units with a linen cabinet or other feature. 

When we remodeled our house as an empty nester couple, we moved the laundry equipment into the extra large basement bathroom. We considered adding plumbing for compact units on the main floor but ultimately decided that having the necessary space available without need for structural changes was sufficient.

2nd laundry is a luxury due to cost (plumbing, electrical, exhaust fan) & space needed.

If in master bath, a stackable in a vented enclosure would keep it out of site mostly.

There is something wrong with your house if the bathroom is a sanctuary.

Haha! Remember ”A Christmas Story”? It’s the same for adults as it was for Ralphie!

I would consider stairs a different type of inconvenience compared to simple distance in a one- story house. But it’s hard to avoid stairs in most larger family homes & certainly in hilly towns. I did love my upstairs hall laundry when I lived in a house with all bedrooms up. My kids were in teens though so no need to keep a close eye on them while doing laundry & other chores.

You might think about the size of the appliances. My washer is reasonably sized but I can’t fit a king comforter in it, though thin quilts are ok.
So, think what laundry you would do where and whether you want one set to be pretty good- sized for bedding, or to get all the towels in one load, and whether you only need a additional compact unit for small loads of frequently used clothing.

I would keep the laundry in the mud room vs the expense of creating two more laundry spaces (water, drain, electrical, venting) and expense of another set of appliances. The drain could be particularly expensive 'down there' and venting probably difficult as well.

Pay down the mortgage or invest the $$ instead.

wow! thanks for all the feedback. For reference, we have five kids ages 13 down to 3. Laundry is a part of the older kids chores….but it does pile up during busy weeks. Our hope is that closer to their rooms, the easier to keep up with it. My husband travels frequently so it is mostly just my own laundry on the main level. If/when we uodate our bathroom we would put a small stacked unit behind some cabinetry or in the closet to keep the bathroom as calm as possible. (I hear ya on hiding from kids in the bathroom).

When my friend with one child married a widower with four children, she put two washers, two dryers, and a 12’ long closet rod in the laundry room. The clothes rod was divided into a section for each person in the family. I thought it was brilliant!

That’s exactly what I did. I placed a w/d unit in a large master closet. I have another laundry room in the more common area for guests. I absoultely love having a w/d near the master. It is so easy to just throw my sheets and towels in. I can wash clothes and throw them in the dryer before I go to sleep. I think it would be a great idea for you and the kids. I think it would also be good for future guests. And it would be good for resale. I think you should do it.

I would desperately want the laundry out of my mud room under your circumstances!

This is common in beach homes in our area and we have looked into it for ours. Excellent idea!

2nd-floor laundry rooms are best if all the bedrooms are on the 2nd floor. Even if you spend most of the day on the 1st floor running up to change the load or do a fold it's not a big deal it's good exercise and it's a lot easier than hauling laundry loads up and down the stairs :-)

Having 2 full-sized laundry rooms make no sense, but if there is a room near the kitchen, i.e mud room, etc, and since I had quite a few requests on a few projects to have a compact all-in-one washer/dryer installed near the kitchen or garage, I have been incorporating them in my layout designs.

I guess many just don't want to wash certain items, like kitchen towels, shop towels, etc in their regular laundry room, and in the last few years, I had more and more requests for that.

Good luck and Happy New Year!

Show a scaled floor plan of the existing condition, and your plan. It's all idle conjecture at this point.

Make it bold enough to read, and blow up on a click.

Laundry is indeed awful in a mud pass, but beyond that? It is far more about routine, process, habits.................than location. If you want to know how I know this? I could write a novel on 32 years of clients. I'll spare you : )

Actually.............. I have one client for whom a ten foot long bank of multiples/ sets would not help. It still would not get done, it would never fully be folded, hung or put away. It is so bad? One day I said these words:

" Honey, you are an unbelievably great mommy. You truly are. But you just totally SUCK on laundry"

Of course we're still friends.....!! SHE KNOWS IT IS TRUE. You'd think it required a scrub brush, wash board and damn stream in the back forty.

"Having 2 full-sized laundry rooms make no sense..." I think that depends in part on family size and house size. In my last house I had two laundry rooms, because the original one was in the basement and when we did an addition we added one to the main level. It was a luxury (? I guess? - if doing laundry is luxurious) but we did use both of them frequently. Main level was for our clothing and linens; basement was for camping gear (sleeping bags and blankets), cleaning rags, and often for the kids' stinky sports uniforms. Also nice to have the extra capacity when we would come back from vacation with lots of loads to do. So I like the idea of two laundries, but depends on your space and of course your family's needs.