Two rooms, two completely different problems
A laundry room has a water supply, a drain, a machine that fills and empties several times a week, a heat source, and in most Mobile houses no window and an extractor that may or may not exist. A mudroom has none of that and instead has wet shoes, bags, coats, sports equipment and the highest traffic of any cabinetry in the house. They share a page here because they are usually in the same part of the house and often the same room, but they want opposite things.
The laundry wants sealed, water-tolerant, closed storage. The mudroom wants open, tough, ventilated storage. Fitting the same cabinet specification to both, which is what a catalogue solution does, produces a laundry that fails at the standpipe and a mudroom full of doors nobody closes.
Start with the machines, because they are less standard than you think
Washer and dryer dimensions vary considerably between manufacturers and between top and front loading. Front loaders commonly sit at 38 to 39 inches tall, and mounted on storage pedestals they reach 50 inches or more. Depth with hoses connected is frequently 30 to 34 inches, against a standard base cabinet depth of 24. None of that is difficult to design around, but all of it has to be measured rather than assumed.
Clearances that matter
Leave at least an inch of clearance each side of each machine, and several inches behind for hoses, the standpipe and the dryer vent. Machines vibrate under spin, and a surround built tight to the casing transmits that vibration into the cabinetry until joints loosen. The dryer vent route is worth confirming before anything is built: a vent forced into a tight bend behind a cabinet collects lint, which reduces efficiency and is a genuine fire risk.
Stacked or side by side reshapes the entire room
| Arrangement | Gains | Costs |
|---|---|---|
| Side by side | About 5 ft of continuous folding counter at a usable height | Two machine widths of floor, so less room for tall storage |
| Stacked | A full machine width freed for a tall cabinet, hanging rail or broom store | No counter over the machines, and the dryer controls sit high |
| Side by side on pedestals | Drawer storage under each machine, no bending to load | Machine tops reach about 50 in, too high to fold on |
Machine heights are typical published figures for front loading machines; measure your own before finalising any layout.
In a narrow Mobile laundry closet, stacking is frequently the decision that creates the storage. In a dedicated laundry room with a spare wall, side by side with a counter over the machines and uppers above is the better room. There is no universally right answer, only a decision that has to be made before the cabinetry rather than after.
What laundry storage actually needs to hold
The honest inventory is shorter than people expect: detergent and softener, stain treatment, a small iron and board or a steamer, spare linen, a drying rack, and a place for the things that come out of pockets. Most of that fits in one tall cabinet and two uppers. The mistake is building a wall of closed uppers and then discovering they hold air, while there is nowhere to hang three shirts that cannot go in the dryer.
The three fittings that earn their place
A hanging rail, even a short one at 24 inches, so wet items come straight out of the machine onto a hanger. A pull-out hamper or two, sorted, at floor level where laundry naturally lands. And a drying rack, either a pull-out rod or a fold-down frame over a sink. Those three do more for a laundry than any amount of door front. The fittings guide covers the mechanisms.
The sink question
A laundry sink is useful and it is also plumbing, which means it steps outside Mobile County's cabinetry permit exemption and into permitted work. If the room already has one, keeping it where it is costs nothing. If it does not, adding one is a decision worth making early, because retrofitting a sink into a finished laundry run means cutting a counter that is already installed.
The mudroom side: lockers, benches and honest hooks
A mudroom works when it is faster to use than the floor. That is the whole design brief. Every door, latch or lid you add is a reason for somebody carrying two bags to drop everything at the threshold instead.
| Element | Dimension | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Bench seat height | 17 to 19 in | Comfortable to sit on to put shoes on |
| Bench depth | 15 to 18 in | Enough to sit properly without blocking the passage |
| Locker width per person | 14 to 18 in | A coat on a hook plus a bag beside it |
| Hook height, adults | 60 to 66 in | Coat hangs clear of the bench |
| Hook height, children | 40 to 48 in | Reachable without help, which is the entire point |
| Upper shelf | Above 66 in | Hats, seasonal items, things not in weekly use |
Working figures used in mudroom design. Set hook heights per person rather than uniformly, because a locker sized for an adult is the wrong locker for a child.
Below the bench, leave the space open with a removable tray rather than fitting doors. Wet shoes need air, and in a Mobile climate a closed shoe cupboard is a mildew experiment. A tray you can lift out and hose off is both cheaper and better.
Material and moisture in a laundry
Plywood anywhere near the machines and any sink, and MDF is fine for painted doors and fronts where flatness matters. The reasoning is the same as it is for a bathroom vanity: the USDA Forest Products Laboratory recommends an 11 percent in-service moisture content for interior woodwork in the damp, warm coastal area against 8 percent nationally, and a laundry adds a live water supply and a drain on top of that baseline.
Two details worth insisting on. Seal the cut edges of any panel that gets drilled or notched for plumbing, because that raw edge is the moisture path. And where a cabinet sits over or beside a standpipe, make the panel removable, so the first leak can be reached without dismantling the run.
What laundry and mudroom cabinetry costs in Mobile, AL
Price by linear foot against published national cabinetry figures. HomeAdvisor's 17 June 2026 installed ranges are $150 to $650 per linear foot for semi-custom and $500 to $1,200 for custom. Laundry and mudroom work usually sits in the lower half of those bands, because the finish standard is a little below a kitchen and a good share of the run is open shelving and bench rather than doors and drawers.
| Project | Linear feet | At $150 per ft | At $650 per ft |
|---|---|---|---|
| Laundry closet, tall cabinet plus uppers | 6 ft | $900 | $3,900 |
| Laundry room, counter, uppers and tall store | 12 ft | $1,800 | $7,800 |
| Mudroom drop zone, bench and three lockers | 6 ft | $900 | $3,900 |
| Combined laundry and mudroom | 18 ft | $2,700 | $11,700 |
Our arithmetic against HomeAdvisor's national semi-custom per linear foot range, 17 June 2026. Countertop, appliances, plumbing and electrical are separate.
The cost guide lists every published figure with its publisher and date.
Before you commission the room
- Measure your actual washer and dryer, including depth with the hoses connected and the door fully open.
- Decide stacked or side by side, and decide about pedestals, before anything is drawn.
- Confirm the dryer vent route and make sure no cabinet forces it into a tight bend.
- Note whether a sink is being added, because that is plumbing and therefore permitted work.
- List what actually has to be stored. Most laundries need less closed storage than they get.
- Include a hanging rail, even a short one, and somewhere for a drying rack.
- For the mudroom, set hook heights per person rather than uniformly.
- Leave the space under the bench open with a removable tray rather than fitting doors.
Laundry and mudroom work across the region
Older houses in Mobile and Saraland frequently have the laundry in a closet, a back porch or a converted pantry, where stacking and a tall cabinet is the only route to usable storage. Newer construction in Daphne, Fairhope and Spanish Fort usually has a dedicated laundry room off the garage, which is the ideal case for a combined laundry and mudroom run.
Related: garage cabinets, closets and pantries, the full service area and the contact page.