Street of Desire

(Photo of La Belle Fleur courtesy Street of Dreams)

Last weekend, I made it over to the Street of Dreams in Seattle. For those not familiar with the concept, it’s an open-to-the-public tour of new construction, multi-million dollar homes that are staged to the hilt with the latest home design trends — from designer furniture and shiny appliances to modern landscaping. This year’s tour featured a “green homes” theme, although the “green” stuff was not immediately evident to me (more on that in a later post).

As a current renter who hopes to buy a home someday, each of the five homes had a few new trends that really made me drool:

• built-in espresso machines
• microwave “drawer” in the island of the kitchens
• outdoor fireplace

However, the best trend that stood out to me was the inclusion of a washer and dryer near the master bedroom, which was usually on the top floor. Maybe it’s not such a new concept, but I just hadn’t seen it integrated in such a seamless way before. But why not? It just makes sense. In most homes, isn’t the top floor where families have their bedrooms, and thus change out of their dirty clothes? Isn’t it where people shower and thus where dirty towels accumulate? And who hasn’t been running late only to realize that the shirt you want to wear is a bit wrinkled? Instead of running down two or three flights of stairs to iron, now you can simply walk next door and throw it in the dryer for a few minutes while you finish getting ready. Brilliant, I tell you.

I did a bit of digging on this and discovered that while you may want to run out and purchase a second W/D immediately, there are some things to keep in mind. Consumer reports came out with some guidelines over a year ago (apparently this “trend” is in for the long haul), including:

• Check with an engineer– Make sure your house is able to accommodate the appliances upstairs. Issues such as weight and vibrations can come into play.
• Location for an air vent — An air vent will most likely need to go through the roof (hey — all that hot air has to go somewhere!) You will also need to figure out a way to get both water and electricity to the machines.
• Quiet designs — When picking out these appliances, go for the ones designed with quiet in mind because you don’t want the noises of a loud washer waking you up at night — or those obnoxious dryer beeps!

If the top-floor washer/dryer idea isn’t an option for you at this time, at least you can take some solace in thinking of all the calories you are burning carrying that laundry basket up and down the stairs!