Spare room - study or utility?

[JoleneJoleneJoleneJoleeeene]

We have a spare room that has become a bit of a dumping ground due to lack of purpose. We’re considering selling in the next year or so, so unsure what’s the best thing to do. It wouldn’t be difficult to make it into an upstairs utility due to pre existing pipes etc. What would be most beneficial when selling?

We have a closet room. Hard to describe but it has built in hanging rails and cubby holes for storage. It saves us having wardrobes in the bedrooms

Utility because they help keep the whole house tidy. Storage is a must though so it doesn't look cluttered.

If you're selling I'd check with an estate agent. A bedroom with a desk in would be my guess. Depends on the rest of your house really. Do your washing machine and tumble drier are currently in the kitchen and could instead go in an upstairs utility? Could it be utility and some wardrobe/storage space? My house is severely lacking in storage so that could be very handy. Maybe share a floor plan?

Is there any other space in the house where someone could work from home? If not then definitely make it a study.

Depends. If your kitchen is big and you have no other potential rooms to wfh, then a study. If your kitchen is short on storage which would be helped by moving the washing machine, then a utility might be better.

If it's big enough to be a bedroom, I wouldn't turn it into a utility as that'll be harder for potential buyers to imagine being something else. And you'll either have to list it as a fewer-bedroomed house, or you'll list the number of bedrooms and people will look at it and think it's not really a 4-bed.

Study. So many people wfh now and if the alternative is the dining table, then a study is a no brainer.

Definitely a study - if it’s currently a 4 bed house then you want to advertise it as a 4 bed really. You can also ask the estate agent when advertising the property to say that there is the pipe work in that room so it could be used as a utility by the new buyers.
I work in property sales and generally the best way to market the property is to have rooms set up as they’re meant to be used. So if you’ve got a small room and you’re selling it as a 4 bed house it’s great to have it set up as a bedroom. However, setting it up as a study is also great because obviously people can see how it can be used as either. Mentioning that there is the possibility of it becoming an upstairs utility room will make it more appealing, whilst still keeping the actual bedrooms there for those who don’t want the utility room but do want the bedrooms.

Bedroom. Everyone will assume you can use a bedroom as a study. Not everyone will be able to imagine a study as a bedroom

I prefer to keep laundry upstairs rather than in the kitchen so if it were for my personal use I might have it as a utility space. However to sell I would put a day bed and desk to present it as a study / spare bedroom.

We have a spare bedroom downstairs and a playroom which could also be a bedroom. We have two bedrooms in use upstairs and then this spare room. It’s small (less than 3m x 3m) we used it as a nursery, but absolutely could be a study. Kitchen is small, so tumble etc is in the downstairs spare room. I feel like laundry spreads throughout the house and it would be useful to have it all in one place.

@JoleneJoleneJoleneJoleeeene why don’t you make the downstairs spare bedroom into a proper utility space and the room upstairs into a single bedroom with a desk? 3x3m really isn’t that small by many new build standards these days - it can definitely be a bedroom.

Then you have a 3 bedroom house with a utility room (many people don’t consider a downstairs bedroom a real bedroom either)

Definitely bedroom. As others have said a downstairs bedroom isn't a bedroom unless you are in a bungalow. It's a reception room.

We've done this too. Works really well.

Thanks all. It’s a bit of a strange layout as we have converted two flats into one property, so we have a large living room/diner, separate kitchen, and playroom, shower room and playroom downstairs. We only need two bedrooms and wouldn’t use a separate reception downstairs. I think a study sounds better for selling short term.