Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Laundry in common house

[Bitner/Stevenson (lilbert]

Isn't that an awful word?

You GOTTA have a laundry! The laundry is like the mail center- a great place
to get to know each other, fold each other's laundry, catch up on gossip,
etc. It really increases use of the common house.

In addition to the social benefits, it makes economic and ecological sense
to have a central laundry. We designed a laundry hook-up in each unit, and a
common house laundry. Some people, especially with larger families, want the
convenience of a laundry at home, and some like the camaraderie of the
common house laundry. situations change, too. I used to use the CH
exclusively, but when my daughter was born, I got a washer at home to be
able to do all that baby laundry without schlepping. Now my washer is broke
and so am I, so it's back to the common house!

If you're trying to cut down unit sizes and costs, having a central laundry
means that people have the choice to have a laundry at home, or use the
extra space for storage. It makes so much sense to have three washers to
repair instead of one in each unit.

I honestly can't think of any disadvantages to our laundry. People always
have the choice to have one at home. You'll want to be sure to design a
space for home laundries in order to get mortgages-the banks won't even
consider financing a project where the individual homes don't have a
laundry-and put them on the same floor as the bedrooms for heavenssakes.
Architects never do laundry and haven't got a clue about where to put them!.

--
Liz Stevenson
Southside Park Cohousing
Sacramento, California

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From: "Marya S. Tipton" <sundog [at] gburgtimes.com>
To: Multiple recipients of list <cohousing-l [at] freedom2.mtn.org>
Subject: Laundry in common house
Date: Tue, Dec 21, 1999, 2:13 AM



Hello all you communards (ugh! - referring to Time article),
We here at Hundredfold were wondering if anyone out there has any opinions
on the advantages and disadvantages of having a laundry center in the common
house.

Marya Tipton
Hundredfold Farm
Orrtanna, PA
A Place to Grow!
Visit our website at http://users.desupernet.com/rhubarb