What would you do with a space roughly 3m x 1.7m?

[Africa2go]

Not really a strictly home decoration point, but we are having a side extension on our house essentially to get a study. However, we're going down three quarters of the length of the house, so as well as the study, will end up with an extra space roughly 3m x 1.75m.

We can't decide what to do with it so we have a few options. For info, we have a large open plan diner at the moment, separate lounge, very small utility and small downstairs loo. As above, extension will give us a study. 4 bed (but 3 teenagers, so no spare/guest room), family bathroom, ensuite.

1. Big utility room (and convert existing utility into a sort of pantry) (this is my preferred option but appreciate it doesn't give us much flexibility to use it as anything else e.g. if we end up with 3 teenagers / young people living here as adults / after uni or whatever if we have built in cupboards etc)
2. Stick a small sofa in there with a TV and have it as a very small TV room / gaming room (could presumably make that a sofa bed subject to getting one which fits so at a push someone could sleep in there)
3. Something else???

Any ideas gratefully received!

Looking at your set up you have 3 children and a 4 bed house, plus this will also add in a study.

For me it would be the bigger utility with a lovely pantry in the old one.

The way I look at this, each child has their own bedroom so hopefully a place to study in there. Are the bedrooms of roughly the same size or is one of them in a box room? The study is for whom? Would you need a second room for studying in? ie another adult?

We do not have a spare room, my friend had the 2nd biggest bedroom as a spare room but then worked out that out of 365 days in a year it was probably occupied about 20 days a year. She had a swap round of the bedrooms with the kids as one was in the smallest room.

Would a second albeit small lounge be used by anyone? I think rooms need to have a purpose. I am still voting for a larger utility, mine is teeny and "functional" I would love a bigger one. We have a 4 bed house, 1 bedroom is Dh's study. The teenagers have a converted double garage as a games/study/hang space.

Yes, we probably need a spare room for 5 or 6 nights a year - but thinking ahead to maybe teen friends etc even boyfriends/girlfriends coming to stay (2 teens currently 15/16).

Study is for DH (likely to be permanently WFH), kids all have space in their rooms to study but no real hang out space (we don't have a garage). I imagine an extra TV room would get used, as would the utility. Like you, the current utility is perfectly functional just small.

@Africa2go even boyfriends/girlfriends coming to stay

My sons are almost 18 and almost 15. They have had friends stay over very occasionally and they have slept on an air mattress on their floor of their bedroom.

Do your teens live in their bedrooms? Would they come together to watch tv in the newly created room? I think that might sway me as they would be together without being in a space that belongs to the one of them. You could call it "The Snug". My friend has a small second lounge for the teens and they call it the snug.

If you are planning to stay in the house long term then maybe look at being your future friend, so get the builders to put in the plumbing for the utility in the new room, when you have kids off to uni then you might rethink the space. It doesn't have to be permanently one thing.

So maybe start with it being a second lounge but talk to the kids, then later it becomes your larger utility.

Fab advice, thank you!

I'd go for a snug. Although we have 2 sittingrooms and the DC seem to never want to be in the same room as each other and I usually find 1 in each plus one in their bedroom.

I think I'd want a decent utility if it was me.

I think a snug could work but it would be pretty snug - and they matter less now you can easily get TV on laptops I think?

I second @onthebenchofdoom's advice. Have a teen gaming/ hang out room now, change to utility once they are older/left home.

Could you have a sofa bed in the snug so someone could sleep in there if necessary, but most of the time it's a snug?

I think it is always useful to have a space downstairs that can be slept in / on, if someone is ill, breaks a bone, is an insomniac and doesn't want to wake others.

I like the idea of planning ahead and putting plumbing in.

If it was me I'd have a library / reading space.

If you look at 'tiny houses' you will find all sorts of options, raising washing machines so there is a drawer under in a drawer. Sleeping platforms, lots of ideas so you could have a laundry room that could be used as a sleeping space.

I would suggest your first option. We have just converted our garage 50/50 utility/snug. The snug is 2.2x2.2 and I think yours, although longer at 3m, would be too narrow at 1.7m. We can only just for a 3 seater in at 2.2m and the tv is on the edge of just far enough away for watching. It feels quite close at 2.2m away (it's wall mounted - quite low down to avoid a sore neck.

Would it be possible to make it into a downstairs shower room, and combine to current cloakroom with the small utility to create a larger utility room? Dont know what the queues are like in your house, but in my house there were always queues.

I think it would be more useful as a multipurpose snug/spare bedroom (downstairs bedroom can be very useful eg temporary problem managing stairs due to injury as pp says)

Could be used as a snug, spare room, exercise room, hobby room, second study in case two of you ever need to wfh at the same time...I would love an extra downstairs room like this!

Our utility is tiny, but it’s packed out with storage and does the job, I don’t feel the need for it to be bigger.

Thank you for all the ideas - I think we'll see if we can get it plumbed and then make a final decision once we've seen the space. As with Covid, you never know what's round the corner and how you'll end up using your house!

Im interested in what you do our new house has a room about this size, we don't need a permanent bedroom (we have enough bedrooms) or a loo/sower room/utility room/walk in larder as we've got those already Im thinking of making it a study/room for books (my husband collect them) but if we line the walls with books it will be very narrow. If we put a single bed in it on the off chance that a couple of days a year we might need a bed it will take up too much room. The previous owners used it as dumping ground thats what we're currently doing stuff waiting to go to go to the tip it works very well for that!