Washer and Dryer Pedestal

The modern trend of changing from top-loading clothes washers to front-loading washers and dryers has brought with it the need for pedestals for those washers and dryers. While it is possible to set them on the floor, bending down that far to access the wet clothing in your washer and dryer, pedestals negate all of the advantages of buying a front-load washer.

Unfortunately, the laundry machines, pedestals, and appliances designed to help match those washers and dryers are an added expense, add noise, and don’t do much more for you.

If you have the washer and dryer laundry pedestals sitting up off the floor, it only makes sense to find something to do with all that. Add an extra washer and dryer laundry pedestal, laundry pedestals, and space underneath to store them.

Most laundry and washer and dryer pedestal rooms don’t have enough storage space, so why not learn to convert that empty washer and dryer laundry washer and dryer pedestal on top opening to storage, saving space for laundry and washer and dryer laundry pedestals and getting double-duty out of the washer and dryer laundry washer and dryer laundry pedestal too?

We can make such a base out of plywood, using baskets or bins for dirty laundry, clothes hampers, or storing laundry supplies.

Either way, it probably makes sense to help find and sort and put items to help make the laundry room and to help sort and store and sort the laundry items in the baskets first so that you can be sure to build your laundry pedestal so there is enough clearance for them to fit inside it.

Basic Design of the DIY Plywood Pedestal

The bare pedestal will be a box with an open front. For the pedestal to match the style of other cabinets, we will raise the bottom shelf off the floor a few inches, like a toe kick on a cabinet.

However, it will not be inset like a toe kick; the wood rails will be at the outer edge of the washing machine laundry washing machine pedestal and laundry washing machine pedestal itself.

The top of the laundry washing machine pedestal and the drawer inside will be like two shelves, supported around the edge by the vertical part of the cabinet. But this sort of box has to hold a lot of weight, so rather than making plain shelves, we will draw a support frame for them. That’s where we’ll begin.

How to Build the Washer & Dryer Pedestal

We need two identical plywood assemblies, one for the top of the laundry room pedestal and one for the bottom. We’ll use 1/2″ thick plywood for these. The ladder frame will be made of 2″ x 3″ dimensional lumber.

These will probably look better than 2″ x 4″ studs, as they are not as common and give us additional vertical height that we can use to help add up for storage.

The Top & Bottom

The diagram below, for the top and bottom, doesn’t have any dimensions because it has to be based on the size of your washer and dryer. Place them together, where they will go, and measure the length and width.

Ideally, you want the top of the platform of your laundry room or the front load washer pedestal and dryer pedestal to be the same size as the front load washer and dryer together. To determine the locations of the crossbars, divide the length of the two washer and dryer pedestals, the washer pedestal platform and dryer pedestal platform and dryer pedestal platform by three.

Plywood pedestal top

The measurement you get from your washer and dryer is our starting point for all our dimensions. At the top of the laundry room, washer and dryer pedestals, laundry pedestals itself, the washer and dryer pedestals itself, laundry pedestal, washer and dryer pedestal, and platform, made of ½’ plywood, needs to match that dimension. The framework for the top needs to be 2-1/2″ shorter (1-1/4″ on each end) than the plywood and 1-1/4″ narrower to allow space for the back and end panels and their frames.

Sample Dimensions:

⦁ Overall washer & dryer dimension – 56” x 31 ¾”

⦁ Top shelf – 56” x 31 ¾”

⦁ Frame for both shelves – 53 ½” x 30 ½”

⦁ Bottom shelf – 53 ½” x 30 ½”

The bottom drawer frame and plywood shelf must be the same price, brand, type, brand, and size as the price and brand of the top drawer frame. The price difference will be that the price of the plywood will not overhang the price of the front and ends as it does for the price of the top of the drawer and the price of the pedestal.

The Back & Ends

The ends and the back will also be made of ½” plywood. As an alternative, you can choose to use a beadboard. This is plywood that has been milled to have a beaded pattern throughout. It is typical for woodwork on more excellent colonial-style homes.

The overall height of the washing machine pedestal is up and left to your discretion. There are two things you want to take into consideration here. One is putting the washer and dryer washing machine pedestal at a comfortable height for working with them.

This change means raising the floor in the center of the doors between waist and chest height. It will be hard to help reach the controls if they exceed the floor in this range.

it the floor is any lower than this, it will be necessary to bend too much, bending down to the shop floor to help empty the units.

The second consideration is the height of the baskets you have selected. It would be best to have enough clearance for them to fit in the space you are creating.

This means that the overall height of the pedestal will need to be about 7 to 7 ½” higher than your baskets.
Cut the end panels and back to fit, and nail or screw them into place, attaching them firmly to the top and bottom drawer frames.

Washer and dryer-pedestal sides

The unit is usable, but it would be better to add something dryer pedestals to help make it a bit stronger. This can be done by cutting scrap pieces of the leftover 2″ x 3″ dimensional lumber, attaching them inside the pedestal at the four corners, and screwing or nailing through the plywood sides and back to add them.

Don’t worry about the visible hardware; we will cover it up. These pieces of lumber will primarily support of the washer and dryer, so make sure to check that they are attached well.

To add strength and aesthetics to the pedestal, the ends of the washer pedestal and dryer pedestals are framed with 1″ x 4″ frame and stile boards, as shown in the diagram below.

Another 1″ x 4′ rail is attached across the front of the unit, at the top, to help raise and hide the 2″ x 3″ dimensional lumber of the shelf frame. An additional piece of 1″ x 4″ is attached washer pedestal and dryer pedestal at the corners, to help cover the 2″ x 3″ supports there.

Washer and dryer pedestal back

Finishing the Unit

Once assembled, the unit’s base should be painted to match the room it will be installed in. If your home has white trim, you may want to paint it white to match.

Another possibility is to paint it whatever accent color you use in the house. Use your imagination. You may even want to paint the plywood to match the walls, rails & stiles to match your trim or accent color.

The pedestal should be finished with a white baseboard to match the color of your home. If your home has stained and varnished trim, you’ll want to paint the unit that colors white before attaching the white baseboard. If it is painted white, you can install it white before painting the pedestal white.

Alternate Ideas

Rather than using baskets for storage of appliances, laundry, or hampers in your washer and dryer pedestal, you could install cabinet doors or drawers. The only real difference in the construction for adding entries would be to install dividing strips, essentially additional styles, so that you could have something to mount the doors to.

You wouldn’t want the doors to be more than about 18″ wide, as cabinet doors that are wider than that tend to sag.

Adding doors allows you to lock the storage under your washer and dryer, which may be necessary if you have small children or animals. Keeping the laundry chemicals or products you will be stored out of range would be best. This would be much safer than leaving those items out in the open.

Another possibility is to install drawers on the pedestal. Like the cabinet doors, drawers would require adding additional stiles to the floor in front of the cabinet. You would also need to add wood supports, behind those stiles, for the drawer rails to mount to.

Drawers give will help raise the price and buy you a little bit less storage space than an open design or even cabinet doors will, but they help make the price make up for the ease you will have in getting to everything you have stored under that drawer there.