My goal in the Laundry Room has always been MORE STORAGE. We wanted to raise our washer and dryer so that our laundry baskets could sit underneath (and not on my shelves where I want to put other things). I had no idea how many problems we would run into! Even with all the problems I would do it again in a heart-beat.
Step 1: Find some free pallets.
I made friends with a local wood recycling company. I frequent their wood piles and find all sorts of treasures. When I needed some wood for crates and also for some other projects (Laundry Storage Crates) I went and grabbed a few. The down side to re-using wood is you have to clean it first. Our poor living took a hit while I cleaned & gathered materials for various projects.
This was mistake number one. I figured the washer & dryer are only about 26" deep. How much could the walls change in that amount of space? So I measured in front of the washer & dryer 58 3/4" wide. So I made the length 58" overall. I didn't find out that, in-fact, the back of the washer and dryer only have 57 1/2" until I had pulled out the washer/dryer and tried to put my new stand (all built) in place... it didn't fit.
To pull out the washer and dryer we had to disconnect them. The dryer is easy: unplug & pull off vent. The washer was a little more tricky. Make sure & have a bucket and towels ready! Turn the hot & cold valves off. Unplug the machine power cord. Disconnect the 3 hoses from the wall, that way you have control the water discharge and can direct it right into the bucket.
Step 4: Proper Support.
Remember the washer is going to fill up with water... this stand needs to support some serious weight. I made sure my 4x4 posts would line up with each foot. This way the 2x4's spanning the distance are not supporting much vertical weight; they only keep the posts in place. Make sure and measure this one, my washer and dryer are NOT the same width.
Step 5: Put it all together.
After finally getting the stand to fit (since I hadn't measured the back) we put the washer up on, ready to have our laundry room back. My husband was the first to realize my second mistake... with the new shelves I had built, the washing machine's lid would only up up to 45 degrees. I was devastated. We couldn't leave it like that. My very smart husband suggested switching the washer and the dryer.
We got some longer hoses for the washer, discovered we didn't have the right tool to disconnect the hoses from the washing machine, went back to the store, got the tool, came back and connected the washer. We moved it to the right and prepared to put up the dryer. It was then we realized problem number 3: we didn't know how we were going to connect the dryer back up once we put it back in place. The space in between the shelves and top of the dryer has hardly enough room to stick your head in. So my husband crawled underneath and with help from me above we barely got the dryer hooked back up.
The washer opens up just great now, we have a ton more storage and our Laundry Room is closer to being an extraordinary space, rather than an ordinary space.
