Quick answer
Laundry cabinetry starts around $2,800 including GST for a 1200mm run, but the price is rarely the constraint — the machine is. A front loader needs its door to open into something, a top loader needs clear air above the lid, and both need to be pulled out for service. Plan the cabinetry around those three facts and a cupboard laundry works. Plan it around the wall dimensions and you will build something you cannot get the washing machine out of.
Key points
- From about $2,800 including GST for a 1200mm run of laundry cabinetry.
- Top loader means nothing directly above it. That single fact rules out most cupboard laundries with a top loader.
- Front loader doors are big and they swing wide — check which side yours hinges before anything is drawn.
- Leave the machines pullable. Cabinetry that traps a machine turns a service call into a demolition.
- A laundry tub is deeper than a kitchen sink, so the cabinet under it holds less than you think.
- Machines and plumbing are somebody else's trade. Cabinetry, benchtop and the tub cut-out are ours.
The Auckland laundry has been shrinking for thirty years. A 1960s house had a room with a tub, a copper's worth of space and a window. A 2020s townhouse has a 900mm cupboard off the hallway with a stacked pair of machines in it and a door that has to close.
That is a cabinetry problem, and it is a genuinely interesting one, because unlike a kitchen almost nothing in it is negotiable. The machines are the size they are.
The machine sets the layout
Start with the appliance dimensions — the real ones, off the spec sheet, not the showroom card. Then add the things people forget: the hoses and the power point behind, which need 50 to 100mm of depth that the machine's own measurement does not include, and the door.
A front loader door is a wide, heavy disc that swings through most of a quarter circle. In a cupboard, it will hit the frame long before it is fully open unless the opening is wider than the machine or the door hinges the right way. Machines are usually hinged left, and some can be reversed, but not all — check yours rather than assuming, because it decides which side of the cupboard the cabinetry can occupy.
A top loader is simpler and stricter: nothing goes above it. Not a shelf, not a bench, not a cabinet. It needs the lid to swing fully up and it needs a person to reach down into it. In practice that means a top loader and an overhead run cannot share a wall, which is the single most common reason a laundry plan comes back needing redrawing.
| What | Allow | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Behind the machine | 50–100mm | Hoses, waste and the power point. It is not in the appliance dimension |
| Above a top loader | Full lid swing plus reach | No bench and no overhead cabinet above it. This is the one people get wrong |
| In front of a front loader | The door's full swing | Check the hinge side, and whether it can be reversed |
| Either side of a machine | A few millimetres, plus a way to pull it out | Levelling feet and service access. A machine boxed in tight is a machine you cannot get to |
| Bench over machines | Machine height plus clearance | It has to clear the top of the machine, not sit on it |
A bench over the machines is worth it, with one condition
A run of benchtop across the top of two front loaders is the most useful metre in any laundry. It is where washing gets sorted and folded, and without it that job migrates to the dining table for the life of the house.
The condition is that the bench has to be supported by the cabinetry and clear the machines, not rest on them. Machines vibrate — a bench sitting on top of a spinning front loader is a noise complaint and, over time, a failed join. It also has to come away, or be short enough to slide a machine out from under, because eventually one of them will need a technician.
Tub or sink
A proper laundry tub is deep — deliberately, so you can fill a bucket and soak things — and that depth eats the cabinet beneath it. If what you actually do is rinse a cloth and fill the iron, a standard sink gives you back most of a usable cupboard. If you have a dog, a garden, or a rugby season, you want the tub and you will not regret losing the storage.
Either way the cut-out is cabinetry work and is priced as its own line, because a drop-in tub and an undermount basin are different amounts of fabrication.
Where a laundry cabinet gets wet
Not where you would guess. The tub end is usually fine because it is designed for water and people are careful there. The damage tends to start at the base of the cabinet beside the machines, from small leaks at hose connections that go unnoticed for months behind an appliance nobody moves, and along the front bottom edge where wet washing gets dropped.
- A recessed toe kick keeps the carcass edge out of anything sitting on the floor.
- Leave the machines accessible. A slow hose drip found in a week is a wipe; found in a year it is a new cabinet and possibly a floor.
- In a cupboard laundry, ventilation matters — a closed door on a warm damp machine is how the cabinetry above it ends up smelling before it ends up swelling.
- If the laundry is in a garage, expect a colder, damper environment than the rest of the house and specify accordingly.
Frequently asked questions
How much does laundry cabinetry cost?
From around $2,800 including GST for a 1200mm run made to the space, with a tub cut-out as a separate line. Width, finish and the amount of benchtop move it. A single cupboard laundry and a full utility room with a tall broom unit are different jobs, and both get priced off the actual opening.
Can I put a bench over my washing machine?
Over a front loader, yes, and it is the most useful thing in the room. Over a top loader, no — the lid has to open and you have to reach into it. If you have a top loader and you want a folding bench, it has to go somewhere else on the wall, and that is usually the point at which people consider switching machine type.
How much space do I need behind the machine?
Allow 50 to 100mm on top of the appliance depth for hoses, the waste and the power point. Appliance spec sheets quote the box, not the installation, and a laundry built to the box measurement is one where the machine sits proud of the cabinetry by exactly the amount of the hose bend.
Do you supply the washing machine or do the plumbing?
No to both. We make cabinetry and benchtops. Machines, tapware and every plumbing and electrical connection sit with your appliance supplier, plumber and electrician. We will build precisely to the machine you have chosen, which is why we ask for the model number rather than the size you remember.
Is a laundry in a garage different?
Colder and damper than the rest of the house, and usually on a concrete floor that occasionally gets hosed. It is perfectly workable — a lot of Auckland laundries are in garages — but the toe kick detail and keeping the carcass edges up out of floor level matter more there than anywhere else in the house.
The short version
Get the machine model numbers first, check which way the door hinges, and never plan anything above a top loader. Do those three and a cupboard the width of a doorway will hold a working laundry. Skip them and you will have built a very tidy box that the washing machine cannot come out of.