Oh brilliant hazelligan-just brilliant!! My trick is when they insist on wearing the same dreadful, manky, faded, stained, damaged T-shirt/ top/ jumper/cardigan is for it to disappear into laundry purgatory. Procedure as follows ; Stage 1 Item arrives for laundering. Laundry Maid /Fairy aka ME leaves the offending article into the pending tray aka the floor. Pending tray is emptied with contents being place into suitable container aka black plastic bag. The item is then posted to America aka place black bag in the rubbish bin. Stage 2 If the item is ever missed, it'll be at least 3 wks before Laundry Maid is contacted re same - usually when she is off-duty + doing nothing aka relaxing. Laundry Maid will inform owner that she has no idea which item is under discussion + remainder of 10 min conversation will establish description of article - Are you sure it's black + not navy. It's got an airplane printed on it? Really? Finishing up with a promise to look for same in a timely fashion. 3 weeks later, the first conversation takes place all over again. This time the Laundry Maid instructs owner to search his own room thoroughly + whilst he's at that he can clean room, throw out rubbish, return crockery + cutlery to the kitchen area where the Kitchen Maid is on duty + change bed linen. This tactic is double-edged as although you get 1 clean room, a vast amount of washing-up + laundry is generated. However, owner has now forgotten about missing article. 3 weeks later, discussion is resumed but Laundry Maid now instructs owner to look for missing item in siblings' rooms, pets sleeping quarters, existing dirty laundry basket, ironing basket, all kit-bags + holdalls and back + boot of car. This often generates more crockery, more soiled laundry, stinking sports kit but at least the original offending article will not turn up. In the very unlikely event that the issue is ever raised again - repeat stage 2 all over again. But time consuming- but works a treat!!

I have a Miele washing machine with another brand tumble dryer over the top of it. We made the tall units deep and wide enough to fit them into. If you just want to have them side by side on the floor make sure you have a deeper worktop to allow for the plumbing and then add a door to give that the integrated look. It's easy to do and cheaper to have freestanding appliances rather than integrated.

We have a washer/drier and it's perfectly fine. In the past we'd had one which wasn't too good on drying so we went to 2 separate machines. Anyway, before this house we were in rented for a while with a good washer/drier so decided to get one for this house. There's just the two of us so we don't have huge wash loads but it does a good job on the bedding which is a full load. But don't go for the cheapest. False economy. Ours is a Siemens iSensoric. Worth the outlay for us.

Thanks for the replies! @oneplan - I had thought about this but I’ve only ever had a nightmare with washer/dryers - the dryer setting just seems to make the clothes warm and damp! Maybe there are better models... @ann - thank you for the recommendation...I’ve tried to look that one up, don’t suppose you could tell me the model? It looks like it might not be quite as shallow as fully integrated appliances but if I can check the dimensions maybe that would work!