French door would open out

Your 1680 seems wrong. I’m with your designer on this one. Consider a bi-fold.

There is ,No reason why you can’t have a door opening to external area.

Bigreader - do you mean a bifold door opening inwards for the internal laundry door?

Your laundry is very tight, and no where for a pocket to draw back into, you could have the exterior door open out and the other door open back into the entrance and in front of the cupboard. Or you could consider something like this.

My external laundry door opens outwards. This was not my choice. It was instructed by the builders to be this way. It is on the south west side where all the rain usually comes from. The builders said it would seal better by opening outwards, because there are no eaves or shelter on this side of home. I do not have any issues with this set up. It is actually easier with, a full basket of washing on my hip, to open the door away from me than towards me.

Hello RtHouse

If this is a New Build, then For your external Door this could be a Glass Sliding door (one fixed glass panel and one Glass slider. This can be achieved by stopping the end of your cabinetry around 100mm short of this outside sliding door. Alternatively you can also swing the external door outward providing you have clearance. You see this done a lot in the US on front and back doors.

For your internal door; with a room width of 2180 and taking the 600m & 500mm cabinetry leaves you 1080mm walkway clearance. If you start your door frame at the front of the 600mm bench and use a 720mm Pocket sliding door with a 75mm Architrave (so -795mm) this leaves you -- 2180 - 600 - 795 = 785mm minus the 95mm deepx35mm thick corner wall stud inside the wall, which gives you 750mm clearance for your 720mm door to slide into. So yes a pocket slider should fit the space.

Obviously this Laundry Wet area will also require Plumbing which includes Floor Drains.

Hope this Helps, Malcolm.

Any pocket door also requires more wall depth.

I noticed in November 2025, you were asking suggestions about your renovation and new placement of laundry, as you only had a euro laundry. Oklouise suggested no door on the external wall of the laundry. Any reason why you did not like this suggestion.

You could still have a window on external wall for ventilation and just under bench cupboards.

For context, I have added your plans from previous post regarding proposed laundry/kitchen renovation.

Hi Dreamer - good detective work!

Since I asked the question in November we made a change to the dimensions of the laundry to avoid additional structural work in the hallway - so it is now shorter than what we originally hoped. Having cabinets on both sides of the walkway maximises storage space and avoids having any corners which are awkward to access (already dealing with 3 of those in our kitchen!)

But additionally, we have our washing line on the side of the house very close to where the laundry door is planned so we would like to be able to access that without walking through the entire house and around.

Thanks for sharing your experience with the outward opening door. I actually think we'll really like it but our designer just said it wasn't normal and didn't really explain why!

I think we'll end up with the external door opening outwards and a 720mm pocket door as suggested by Malcolm above.

Thanks

Hi Malcolm,

Thanks so much for that detailed response. The calculations in particular are extremely helpful. It is a renovation and we're pretty happy with the external opening door idea now - our building designer was quite against it but couldn't really explain why other than that it was unusual. I think a cavity door + outward opening external door will make this small laundry feel a little less cramped.

Thanks!

Rthhouse, Excellent that feedback set you on a good track. An outwards opening door would work perfectly for your situation. My washing line is directly outside my laundry door as well. It is extremely convenient.