Utility room - off the hall or the kitchen?

[Pannacotta]

We have no utility room at the moment and I would really like to create one.

There are two places where it could go, one is in the current downstairs shower room (we'll remove the shower and the washer/dryer can be stacked in its place). I would want to squeeze in storage for hoover/mop/cleaning things too, but there'd be no room left over.

The second is off the kitchen. There's an understairs area which comes off one side of the kitchen, which is quite small and pokey. I have a feeling this might be better used as a walk in larder type area - the kitchen is not huge and has no larder at the moment -but I'm not sure.

Which do you think would be more practical?
How do you arrange larder/utility storage?

hmm i would LOVE a larder, so i would make the larder in the kitchen and use the other area as utility room

We managed to squeeze in a larder, and it is BRILLIANT. It is shelved top to bottom - top shelves for those things you keep, but don't use (thermos anyone?). We squeeze the hoover in there too.

Fab if you can have both.

Thanks, we do cook a lot and have a lot of dried food and wine so it would be useful.

We had a fab utility room in our last house with washer/dryer, sink, shoe racks, clothes storage, airer etc and our new utility would be small and share space with the downstairs loo, so that is the compromise.

Is it grim to have a loo/utility as one room?

i have just done an extension and have utility off the kitchen. it was supposed to have another internal door to the loo but we couldn't fit it all in. I see what you mean about loo and washing machine maybe being a bit yuck. but as long as they're not side by side I don't see the problem.

The washer would be close to the loo Lexi but we would build units around it and hopefully fit in a cleaning cupboard between washer and loo.
If we put the utility next to the kitchen we lose the larder, so I need to weigh up both options really.

For me it would be more important to have access to outdoors from the utility, both for hanging washing and for bringing in dirty boots etc. It probably depends how tidy you are...

I agree, neither of our options is great, the bathroom option in off the hall and near the back door, the kitchen option means you'd have to traipse through the kitchen (back door on other side of room) to get to utility.
Neither is ideal, I think the laundry would have originally been "below stairs" in this house.

Pannacotta, we actually chose to put in a combined utility & downstairs shower-room (well, when I say chose, we didn't have room for two separate ones!)

We were putting in a downstairs loo/shower-room anyway at the same time as doing a kitchen extension. Being able to put the washer & dryer in there gave us more scope to get the kitchen layout we wanted. Tbh we rarely use the shower in there (mainly used by guests) so with hindsight maybe we should have foregone that...

We have the washer & dryer stacked & a tiny washbasin. Unfortunately it isn't big enough to have floor space for a clothes horse, though I have toyed with putting one in the shower cubicle...

I keep the hoover, ironing board, etc in a cupboard in the kitchen.

I would love a huge utility to keep all things related in one place but it's not going to happen in these house...

Both, definitely :)

We have what some friends have dubbed a 'loo-tility' room - it's fab. Mind you, it's quite big so the loo and the washing machine are some distance apart. TBH I don't see a problem as long as you clean the loo regularly! I'd definitely put the utility in the downstairs bathroom and the larder in the kitchen.

Thanks all, I think a "loo-tility" it is, plus larder in kitchen.

I know we are lucky to be able to have both, will just have to make the most of the limited space so we can cram in all our gubbins!

How's the kitchen revamp plan going? Did you decide what to do about the windows?

Hi Grendel how are you?
We havent got any further with our plans, we need to decide a few basics first re access to garden. We probably need to speak to an architect (again) re planning permission as we live in a conservation area.

Also we've had a bad run lately with the renovation, so have decided not to worry about the kitchen for now, though we may sort out the utility room soon.

How are you getting on with your house/garden?