The Sunshine Coast laundry used to be an afterthought, a broom cupboard with a machine crammed in. That's changed. From Noosa Heads to Caloundra, homeowners are investing in laundries that work beautifully and look the part. Here's how to design one worth showing off.
Why the laundry matters more than people think
The laundry is the most-used room in a family home after the kitchen, but it's rarely designed with the same care. A poorly planned laundry creates friction every single day: no bench space, nowhere to hang clothes, laundry powder and detergent crammed on a windowsill, the pile of ironing that never moves.
A well-designed laundry solves all of that. And on the Sunshine Coast, where families spend more time outdoors, and come in dirtier, the functional laundry is genuinely important infrastructure. The swimwear, the beach towels, the muddy dog, the surf gear, all of it flows through this room.
Timber panel doors with a stone benchtop, a laundry that holds its own against any room in the house.
The four elements of a great laundry design
1. Benchtop height and depth
The standard laundry benchtop sits at 900mm, the same height as a kitchen bench. But many Sunshine Coast homeowners are opting for 950mm in the laundry, particularly for taller households. It reduces the back strain that comes with reaching into a top-loader or leaning over folded loads.
Depth matters too. 600mm depth allows you to fold a king-size sheet without overhang. If you're working with a narrow room, 500mm is the minimum comfortable working depth, anything less and you're constantly moving things to make room.
2. Upper cabinetry
Upper cabinets in a laundry serve two functions: concealing the clutter (detergents, softeners, stain removers, the things that never look good on display) and providing genuinely useful storage. The best laundry upper cabinets include:
- Full-height doors that reach the ceiling, maximise storage, eliminate the dust trap above standard overhead cabinets
- Adjustable internal shelving at two or three heights
- A dedicated shelf at the right height for the detergent you actually use, measure the box before you design this
- Pull-out laundry hampers, two or three buckets on a pull-out frame, sorted by wash type, hidden behind a door
3. The hang rail
Every Sunshine Coast laundry needs a hang rail, somewhere to air line-dried clothes indoors when it's raining (which does happen, even here), somewhere to hang shirts directly from the dryer to avoid ironing, somewhere to air swimwear in the evening without covering the bathroom rail.
The best placement is over the bench or over a lower cabinet, not over the machines, where drips become a problem. A ceiling-mounted pull-down rail is increasingly popular in high-ceiling laundries.
4. Appliance integration
Front-loading machines allow a benchtop to run continuously above them, the most efficient use of space in a typical Sunshine Coast laundry. A plinth drawer below each machine adds storage for items that don't fit elsewhere (sport socks, beach towels, the backup detergent).
Top-loading machines need a minimum 600mm clear above the machine for the lid to open fully. Design your upper cabinetry to begin above that point, or create a recessed section in the cabinetry for the machine.
In Sunshine Coast homes, the laundry connects directly to the outdoors more often than in southern states, to a side path, a drying court, or a deck. Design your cabinetry to work with that flow. A pull-out linen cupboard near the external door, a hook system for beach bags, and a utility sink at the door end all take advantage of the Sunshine Coast's indoor-outdoor lifestyle.
Design styles that work on the Sunshine Coast
Sage green shaker profile doors with contrasting stone benchtop, photographed at a Buderim new build.
The sink: utility vs. aesthetics
The laundry sink argument in Sunshine Coast homes usually comes down to this: undermount stone or ceramic for aesthetic continuity, vs. a deep utility bowl for practicality. The answer depends on how you actually use it.
If you're washing swimsuits, scrubbing football boots, or rinsing paint off brushes, a deep 40L utility sink is worth every millimetre. If the laundry sink is mostly decorative or occasional, an undermount stone sink keeps the bench surface clean and continuous.
A compromise that works well: a medium-depth undermount stone sink (25–30L) with a high-arc mixer tap that allows large items to be rinsed under it. Not as deep as a utility sink, but far more attractive.
Making a small laundry work
Not every Sunshine Coast home has room for a generous laundry. In apartments, townhouses, and some of the smaller Caloundra, Bokarina, and Wurtulla properties, the laundry might be 1.8m × 1.8m or smaller. Here's how to make it count:
- Stack the machines: A dryer on top of a front-loader gives you a full wall for cabinetry beside them. Saves 600mm of floor width.
- Take the cabinetry to the ceiling: In a small room, every vertical metre matters. Floor-to-ceiling cabinetry on the available wall makes a tight laundry feel like a considered utility space.
- Use a pull-out ironing board: Integrated into the cabinetry, it disappears completely when not in use. No ironing board leaning against a wall, no floor space consumed.
- Folding bench that doubles as a lid: On top of the machine pedestal drawers, a hinged timber panel provides a folding surface that lifts to reveal storage underneath.
What does a laundry renovation cost on the Sunshine Coast?
Laundry cabinetry on the Sunshine Coast ranges from $6,000 for a basic installation (standard doors, laminate bench, simple layout) to $28,000+ for a full designer laundry (custom fluted doors, stone bench, integrated appliances, ceiling-height cabinetry, pull-out hampers). Most mid-range projects, quality materials, well-considered layout, good hardware, sit between $10,000 and $18,000.
The biggest cost variables are the benchtop material (stone adds $800–$3,500 over laminate) and the door finish (2-pack polyurethane adds $600–$2,000 over foil-wrapped doors, but lasts significantly longer in Queensland's humidity).
The laundry nobody talks about: the linen press
One often-forgotten element in Sunshine Coast home renovations: the dedicated linen press. If your home doesn't have a separate linen cupboard, consider building one into the laundry cabinetry, a full-height, 600mm-deep cabinet with adjustable shelving and pull-out baskets at the base.
It's where the spare towels, the beach towels, the extra sheet sets, and the seasonal items live. And when it's well-designed and properly sized, you'll never dig through a pile of towels on a bathroom shelf again.
The best laundry projects we've built on the Sunshine Coast weren't the biggest ones, they were the most thought-through. A 2m × 2.4m laundry with excellent cabinetry, a good stone bench, a hang rail, and a proper utility sink will outperform a large room with off-the-shelf flat-pack every single day.
Let's design your laundry together.
Free consultation, anywhere on the Sunshine Coast. We'll bring material samples, take measurements, and talk through exactly what's possible in your space.
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