Eichler homes have some decidedly modern characteristics that were novel for the early 60s yet remain practical today -- like a master suite, separate family room/den, an open floor plan, etc.
One of the things we like is the "hobby" room or as most folks would call it a laundry or utility room. This brings the washer and dryer into the house (from the garage) which makes for a neater/tidier laundry-chore and in some models, the machines were located in the bedroom areas so as to keep closets, dirty clothes, and machines to wash them in close proximity.
However, in 1963, apparently the trend was for smaller machines as the spaces speced to house the washer and dryer are often fairly shallow. This means that the modern equivalents (in order to fit) are the smaller "apartment sized" washer and dryers which makes it hard to do a load of towels (and forget about blankets and comforters). We had a pair of these in our old condo (upstairs, which was awesome), but we really wanted full-size machines this time.
In order for the machines to not block the doorway and to be able to eventually conceal them behind bi-fold doors (on order presently), we opted to move the machines to the back of the room. While this made for a much more usable space overall, it did present some challenges which involved relocating plumbing and venting which was the focus of a recent 3-day weekend... fun: fire, solder, framing nailers and drywall mud!
Anyway, the machines are now moved, the drywall finished and the space flows much better.
We used the full size stackable washer and dryer in our Eichler for much the same reason. Originally they were in the house but we moved them to the garage and installed new plumbing.
Posted by: leslie | June 06, 2008 at 07:20 AM