In our previous house, a quad-level/split, we had a laundry chute that emptied into a large box on wheels that could be moved over to the washer. I agree that a chute that dumps unto the washer isn't perfect, but if you collect the things in a basket you can sort before you wash.

Love mine. Make sure if you put one in that it has some kind of weighted or self-closing door because I almost had one of my cats jump in!

We installed a 7m plastic pipe and return to create a laundry chute. Then designed a stainless steel cladding and cover

The laundry chute in my old house was handy.

I grew up with one in my bedroom closet. We had to close one up when we remodeled our first house and I missed having one. We put one in a house we built years ago and the buyer who had looked at 30 houses before ours said that was one of the things she liked so much about the house, having grown up with one. It's a great little detail.

I love having a laundry chute, but ours dumps into a large basket. Otherwise is creates a mess. Is handy as the house intercom too, so you might reconsider the placement in the bedroom versus the hallway. I ended up blocking one in our rental because of the noise problem.

just bought a split level - and not sure if rooms line up - i'd love a chute!

@victorianbungalowranch-would love to do one in every closet in the house but it will not line up :(

We do not have kids right now but are working on it, so doing two people's laundry is ok mixed in a basket but I'm wondering how this will all play out with 5 kids at different ages. Lol 5 kids...lmao

First n second floors where the chute is located.

I had one in my 2-storey house and loved it. It emptied into a huge cabinet right next to the washer. Open the cabinet door - see the dirty clothes. Although the top door was just a cabinet door to a cabinet with a hole in its floor, none of our pets was dumb enough to fall in, even the really dumb cat. However, one time one of the neighbor boys went down it. Luckily very skinny so he didn't get stuck, but I sure gave him an earful!

We don't have a laundry chute per say, but a hole about a foot off the floor between the walls in our bedroom. It had a door 20 years ago but it fell off long ago. The 'chute' is framed out, so it's not like a random hole. I love it because it leads to a closet we created in the laundry room just across from the washer. Our new kitten likes to play on the edge and recently fell down to the basement! Luckily there was a pile of clothes in the closet it leads to for her to land on, so she was ok. (This was taken quickly and she was promptly removed from the ledge!)

Laura, looks like you need a new door on there then...

@bluenan -very true! I will be the same way, by color and temp, so I guess it doesn't matter.

@ Laura- I agree with handyman n cute kitten! :)

Same here, bluenan. Just would be happy to not have to carry the clothes down! :)

We had one in our house when I was a teenager (& therefore doing laundry) and we all loved it. I would love to have one again.

Many of our projects have laundry chutes, and my clients really like them. However, if you are able to place a laundry room right next to the bedrooms, then that is even better!

We have a laundry chute in the master bath and love it.

I need a laundry chute. Had a designer look at remodeling kitchen and bath, and expressed how much I wanted a laundry chute ( very popular in my neighborhood of older homes), the designer rolled her eyes and I never saw her again.

@grobby, I would have done the same thing!

I don't think I would benefit from a laundry chute. I tend to do laundry when there is enough for a load, not all on one day, so like to see what is in the hamper. I think if my dirty clothes were two floors away they would be "out of sight, out of mind" and clothes could sit there for days on end until I realize I was getting low on clean clothes.

Absolutely need a laundry chute!

Gina......DO IT!!! You'll love it! To me, it's the best idea because it keeps you from having to tote the clothes to the laundry room. Some people use dirty clothes hampers, but that can be smelly at times, depending on how long the clothes sit in there. But I would definitely put a basket of some kind there to catch the clothes. I sort my clothes by color as well, so having them all mixed up makes no difference to me either. Good luck!

I'd be wary- just start having the kids an let them do the running with the laundry. :)

I loved my laundry chute when our washer and dryer was in the basement of our 2.5 story home, but it had a wooden cage built at the bottom of the chute to catch the clothes, original to our 1924 house. My son used to like to drop his Hot Wheels cars down the chute! We remodeled and put our washer and dryer in a closet on the 2nd floor. I have a smaller closet next to it that holds a laundry sorter- we have 4 children, so I was doing laundry almost every day. The draw back to the washer and dryer in a closet off a hallway or traffic area which, I believe, is on your plan, is where do you put the piles of sorted laundry as you wash? Not so much of a problem with just 2 people, but something to think about with a growing family.

The two story house I grew up in had a chute with doors on the first & second floors. Many years ago, we installed one in the floor of our bathroom closet in a one story ranch...the chute went directly to the basement laundry area with a larger basket to catch all. Loved not toting the laundry down the stairs.

Love 'em! They're so fascinating for children and adults alike! :)

Make sure your local building code allows them.

If it lands in a basket near a sorting area, it's great, but if it just dumps onto the floor or buries the washer and dryer in dirty laundry ... not good.

We had a 2-story house, and just dumped the clothing over the stair rail on laundry day. Shriek "Bombs AWAY!" and try to hit a sibling.

When we bought our new-to-us home, there was a laundry chute in the master closet. Great idea, but it emptied into the kitchen pantry. No way was I going to have dirty undies in my pantry, so we took it out. But it would be handy if it emptied into the laundry room!

LOL!

@foursquare lol on the hot wheels! And I have thought of that and will have built in shelving for "shorting" then I plan on leaving the basket in the path of my husband coming home from work, encouraging him to pick it up and bring it upstairs (LMAO bc I'm sure that will work for about a week). I guess I'm gonna have to get creative.... But after reading all the posts, I'm SO gonna move fwd and frame out the chute! Yay!

Laundry chutes are amazing. I have 2 in my house (one on the 1st and one on the 2nd floor) and use them every day. They all dump into the basement into a laundry basket or on the floor (if I forgot to put the basket back) and it makes it a breeze to move the clothes to the washer/dryer.

Now, if only I could get a reverse laundry chute that would take the items back to the appropriate floors. Maybe I need one of those tube things like they have at the drive through in the bank. Hahaha!

@design inside-Chicago, I have the option of a dumb waiter ( how in heavens did it get that name?) in the dinning room to bring groceries from basement to first floor, I wonder if I can find one that goes to a second floor? But then I think, what else will be transported on it? Lol

I have a laundry chute in a linen closet and loved it when we had kiddies. We did find out much later one child tried to go down it though so there is a safety factor.

The building code no longer allows them as they act like a chimney for smoke and we will have to close it up at some point.

Love love my laundry chute in my little old house! Much remodeling has been done in 99 years, but the 2nd floor and 1st floor chute access remains to deliver all the laundry to the basement near my washer. Would hate to lose it!

I put three 'holes' in the wall between our master bath and the butler pantry on the other side, to empty out over three laundry bins. (whites, colored, towels/sweats) They will eventually have swing flaps, right now they're just open but will be framed and doored. On the other side this is next to the stacked washer and dryer, so it is reach in the bins and compose a load. This is as close to a 'chute' as I've ever had. Hubby wants to paint bullseye targets on the flaps and the look he got back, he's shut up about that decorating non-motif.

@okdokegal- love it

I had a laundry chute in my first house from the 1st and 2nd floor to the basement & loved, loved, loved it! We built a home and the building inspector said that they no longer allow them, they are against building codes. In case of a fire, they would allow the fire to spread much faster. Oh well, the laundry is on the first floor now and we all get our exercise taking it up and down the stairs!

Have a tiny one in my one and only bathroom. The laundry drops into a waiting basket in the basement near the washer/dryer. I love it -- one way laundry hauling! I'm getting ready to remodel the bathroom and the laundry chute (aka a hole in the bathroom floor) is on the top of my "must have" list. Oh, the things that make us happy.

I had one growing up and our previous house had one, too (when our kids were babies). It dumped into the laundry room behind a closed door so if I got *really* behind on laundry, it would just pile up out of sight. I really liked it (but would also have preferred a laundry room on the same floor as the bedrooms so that I wouldn't have needed one).

Gina, 'dumb' used to mean 'not able to speak' or 'silent'. A dumb-waiter was a silent servant who lugged the food or whatever up and down for you.

I prefer my laundry on the same floor as we live, if I had a multistory and was in the throes of the remodel I am hacking my way through; I would put in both the gravity-feed (laundry chute) to get clothes down to the W/D, and a small dumbwaiter to put the basket of clean laundry in to get it back up stairs. The older I get the less stairs the better.

We had a tiny chute from our master bath to the laundry room below in our last house. However, since the bath had NO storage, the cabinet with the chute was used for storage of bathroom essentials. If it had been located in the upstairs hallway, it might have been functional for us.

Thank you all for ur input, I'm having my contractor frame out the chute! Now onto finding one...lol

We went all in on one of these but then quickly realized our negative ROI as our laundry room had been upstairs all along!!

I have one, but I only use it for things that can be washed together.