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June 30, 2024
Location was incredibly important to me when I moved into my apartment, and a part of that meant doing some significant trade offs when choosing a place. One of those trade offs was in unit laundry, which I discovered is decently difficult to find in Los Angeles as a whole. The apartment complex I chose is fantastic, and was worth it for me to give up an installed washer and dryer in my unit. HOWEVER, I made this decision knowing that I had a backup plan for laundry – portable units!
I'm going to take you through exactly how I was able to accomplish this and make it as easy as possible to do my laundry. For me, this was absolutely preferable to taking my laundry elsewhere to do it. Doing my laundry in my own apartment is a necessary comfort for me, even with the effort it took to get everything set up.
First, it was all about deciding which washer and dryer to purchase. The portable options online have many different sizes and square footage capacities, so if you don't do laundry as often or need a smaller unit there are definitely smaller options out there than what I chose. I wanted as close to a regular washer/dryer as possible since I have large blankets that I wanted to make sure could fit. Also be sure to keep an eye out for sales! Prime Day and Black Friday are good days to purchase items like these.
The next step was to figure out which water source I would use to hook up the washing machine. Plenty of people hook up their portable washers to their showers or to their bathroom sinks, however I wanted to create something that would work best for me personally and for the layout of my apartment. This meant figuring out an easy way to attach and detach from my kitchen sink.
When I moved in, my kitchen sink had a faucet with an extendable sprayer like this:
This wouldn't work, as the water line for the washing machine needs somewhere to attach, whether that be by a screw on attachment or a quick connect attachment. This meant replacing the faucet entirely for this to work. I needed a stationary faucet head but I still wanted the option of a sprayer attachment for convenience. I ended up buying this one!
I didn't love that the sprayer didn't match the faucet, however this was the only in-store option that was available with a sprayer. I was on a time crunch as my dad did the faucet replacement for me (thanks dad!) and he was only available for a finite amount of time. The sprayer was incredibly easy to replace, so I bought this one on Amazon that matches perfectly and swapped it out when it arrived.
The next step was figuring out an easy way to attach and detach the water line to the kitchen faucet. I do laundry probably about once a week, so it was imperative that this be a painless process since I'd be doing it so often. Also I wanted to make sure that the connection will be secure every single time to prevent leaks. In order to make that happen, I decided to purchase a quick connection with a water diverter.
This thing is SO COOL. Not only is the water line insanely easy to attach and detach, but I can still use the kitchen sink when I'm doing laundry with the diverter!
Another decision I made was that I wanted to keep my washing machine stationary. There are little dollies like this that you can buy to roll your machine closer to a water source whenever you need it, however I decided it would be easier for multiple reasons to keep the washer next to the kitchen counter and just extend the hoses so they'd reach the sink. This meant purchasing a hose extender for the drain hose as well as the water line, which were available at Home Depot.
This is not the actual hose that I have, but it is very similar (mine is grey).
If you are going down the route of extending the drain hose and water line, make sure that sure you get the right connectors for each hose. For the water line I used a PVC male to male extension piece (measure for your specific washing machine). For the drain hose, I used a stainless steal hose clamp like this one and fit the end of the hose attached to the washing machine into the end of the extension hose and clamped it shut.
The last piece of the puzzle for the washing machine was buying this shelving unit:
I needed a place to put my microwave, and this shelving unit happened to fit perfectly around my washing machine. I put it together and just kept the top shelf, and left all of the other shelves out. There is plenty of room for the lid of the washing machine to open under the top shelf, and the side rails of the unit happen to be a great place to store the drain/water hoses when I'm not using them! I used these velcro strips to 1. attach the hoses to the shelving unit when they're not in use, and 2. strap the hoses together when they're attached to the sink to make sure they stay in place and drain into the sink.
Now the dryer had a much easier assembly process. All I did was put it on top of a desk that I picked up from Habitat for Humanity and placed it close to a window. The air vent was included with the dryer, and I covered the end of the vent with a pair of panty hose. Then when I use the dryer I open the window just enough so the vent has space to direct all of the hot air from the dryer out the window. This helps a ton with the temperature in my apartment.
That's everything! I'm so happy that I was able to get an apartment that I love AND figure out a way to do my laundry in the comfort of my own home. Below is a price breakdown of everything that I bought. I hope that this is helpful if you are also considering bringing in unit laundry to your home!
Portable Washing Machine $436
Portable Dryer $371
Chrome Faucet & Side Sprayer $69
Chrome Replacement Sprayer $14
Faucet Diverter & Quick Connect $20
Washing Machine Drain Hose $16
Washing Machine Fill Hose $12
Stainless Steel Hose Clamp $3
Male to Male PVC Connector $6
Shelving Unit $88
Velcro Cable Ties $6
Total $1,041
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