STYLISH, minimalist apartments are not designed for family living. A few garish plastic toys scattered across a highly polished living room floor is all it would take to ruin the immaculately clean lines and pale, spare decor.

And what would row after row of coats, waterproofs and fleeces, alongside pairs of mucky wellies and trainers do to all that sense of space? Not to mention sticky fingerprints on the shiny, pristine chrome and gleaming sheets of glass?

When I visited such an apartment recently, I wondered where I would keep all the dirty laundry, where I could hang wet washing and where the mountainous ironing pile would go.

For this £1m apartment had a washing machine squashed into a tiny broom cupboard and that, as far as the utility and wash room go, was it. To the carefree couple enjoying this easy, loft style living, a tiny cupboard was probably all they needed.

But it did set me thinking about what I would want from my £1m dream home. And top of my wish list would be a huge, luxurious wash room.

On a normal winter's day, our home looks like a Chinese laundry. There are damp clothes draped all around the kitchen, hanging from radiators in other rooms, stacked on clothes horses in the boiler room and piled up ready for ironing in plastic laundry baskets elsewhere.

I know friends who fill bathrooms and spare bedrooms with washing. Others pile everything into their garages.

All of' us agree modern homes in interminably wet Britain are not designed to cope with a normal family's washloads. Architects and designers don't know what to do with piles of mucky clothes. Like the tiny cupboard in the minimalist apartment, they are best ignored, or hidden from view like some dirty, guilty secret.

Interestingly, even Channel 4's latest Celebrity Big Brother house, which had all the latest hi-tech gadgets and luxuries, including a gym, hot tub and chill-out room, didn't have a wash room. All the stars' washing was done out-of-house, surreptitiously ferried back and forth inside large laundry bags.

So, where Pete Burns's private parts dangling beneath his tiny shorts were deemed suitable for public viewing, the dirty laundry was kept from view, much too hideous for mass consumption.

Far from being hidden away, in my £1m dream home the laundry would be the most spectacular, desirable room in the house. It would be large and airy, with lots of windows, looking out on the best views, preferably onto a field with sheep and spring lambs one season, beautiful Guernsey cows the next.

French doors would lead directly onto a small patch of lawn, where white sheets, pillow cases and towels could be seen billowing on the line on fine, sunny days.

It would have a natural stone tiled floor, with underfloor heating, which would help air and dry clothes hanging from huge, ceiling-high wooden rails on wet days. There would be two deep, rectangular, white ceramic sinks, each with solid teak draining boards, suitable for scrubbing collars and cuffs and stubborn stains.

A wet shower room, tiled out in matt Venetian marble, would lead off the laundry so the boys could be stripped off and hosed down immediately after rugby and football. No more trails of mud through the house.

And there would be plenty of deep wooden shelving, housing large, named wicker baskets, one for each member of the household.

I would have two industrial-sized washing machines, so when one breaks down, I would no longer have the nightmare of huge mountains of washing piling up while we wait for the repair man. And these wouldn't be ugly, white pieces of tin. My washing machines would be Italian fifties retro design, in a pastel shade.

Everything in the room has to look gorgeous, pretty or cute. Let's face it, since laundry is the greatest act of drudgery known to man, anything that adds a bit of wit and fun has got to be a good thing.

My wooden ironing board would be covered in a pretty, quirky fifties retro material from Cath Kidston, the designer who has done for laundry what Nigella Lawson has done for the kitchen. I think I'll have pink polka dots on the ironing board and sweet little sailing boats and sandcastles on the peg bag. I'd feel like a little girl playing house again.

I would have a radio, music and a pile of books in there, along with a few really comfortable armchairs. Instead of closing the door on the washing, my beautiful laundry room is where I'd invite people in for a cup of tea or glass of wine.

A friend says I'm in danger of turning into Bree Van De Camp, the domestic diva from TV's Desperate Housewives. But since I have to trawl through three mind-numbingly depressing loads of dirty washing every day, I reckon the smart thing to do is to learn to love it!

Published: 16/02/2006