Theoretically making a washing machine driver is a piece of cake.
In practice its an absolute nightmare. Most things are easy until you hit the speed control for the main drum.
Trying to keep a constant speed for a drum full of wet washing is not an easy task. You have 7kg+ of unbalanced wet clothes that need rotating at a perfect speed or they will stick to the sides of the drum. You also need to balance the clothes before spinning of your washing machine will shake itself to bits.
I'm speaking from personal experience. I designed a PIC controlled washing machine with a RS232 interface to my PC running software that was nicknamed "Winwash 2000"