How essential is a utility room

[NannyPhlegm]

We have bought a Victorian semi and are doing it up before moving in (it was completely derelict)

DH and I are currently arguing over designing the kitchen and we can't agree on just how essential a dedicated utility room is.

The kitchen is L-shaped. The rectangular bit is circa 5m x 2.5m and the L-shaped bit is 3m x 1.5m. The kitchen opens directly into a dining room/family area, very cosy with wood burner etc

DH would prefer the washing machine/tumble drier/dishwasher to be integrated into the kitchen design, but not have it enclosed with walls...his argument is that it will destroy the openness of the kitchen. I do want a utility room, but mostly because I've been to friends' houses and I like the idea of it. I do agree with him that we will be introducing corners and walls into a space that is actually very neat and with good proportions.

So, wise MN-ers, what would you do? And if you do have a utility room, do you love it or hate it?

We have a large kitchen with a utility "end". It works fine, it has its own sink (there's another at the cooking end) and is very useable, BUT I would love to have a separate utility room, especially with lots of storage for lightbulbs, tools, spare kitchen bits and bobs etc. all out of sight.

A utility room/mud room is a god send. Ours is tiny, but oh so useful. Clean laundry isn't decanted into a dirty kitchen. At the same time, there is somewhere to keep the welly boots and waterproofs. Also a place to keep the shoe polish, mop and bucket etc.

I only wish our utility room was 5x bigger!

If you can swing it, it will make your open space nicer, because you will have somewhere to hide away all the detritus of family life.

Where would you carve out a utility room? In the 1.5 x 3m section? Nice to have a door going outside from it too.

If the kitchen is intended as living and casual entertaining space, the slight loss of floor space to house the noisiest, messiest bits is crucial. If it doubles as a messy back entrance lobby for sports stuff, muddy children and muddy pets, even better.

My mother once had a utility room situated betwen attached garage and the kitchen. it included a screened off toilet, and she dreamed of getting a stackable washer and dryer and fitting in a shower, so muddy or stinky sons coming back from various sports practices and matches, or my dad after gardening, wouldnt ever enter the house proper before being clean.

I would have the dishwasher right beside the kitchen sink though, and in reach of the cupboards the dishes are stored in, otherwise you are creating a lot of work walking dirty and clean dishes back and forth.

We will have a utility eventually but at the moment our washing machine is in the pantry which is a good compromise.

It's more important to me to get the washing machine noise away from the kitchen than to have drying, folding, ironing space etc. We don't have a tumble dryer.

Oh and to add to the dishwasher debate - bear in mind modern dishwashers can be v v quiet, you barely notice they're on. Same can't be said for washing machines!

We also have deep drawers for plates and bowls below the cutlery drawer so stuff being unloaded from dishwasher goes straight into the drawer next to it. Works brilliantly. The cupboard for glasses and mugs is more of a jumble & don't like that one quite so much...

I wouldn't move to somewhere without a utility room. It makes a huge difference. You say it's a Victorian house OP; is there a cellar or brick outbuilding? Both could work for utility rooms.

Essential for a big house but if I had a small kitchen I wouldn't steal space from it.

Can you put a quick floor plan up - we might be able to find a way for you without compromising on what DH wants

We've just done an open plan kitchen/dining area but moved the kitchen wall 'forward' just over 1.2m to make a utility behind. Our house was long so didn't compromise space elsewhere

Another vote for them. Grew up in houses with them and just about to move into one with.
I plan to use it as laundry room, boot room (farmhouse with horses on yard so v needed) tack room, cloakroom, dog room, pram room and general shut-the-door-on-crap-room all rolled into one!

I would have a utility, definitely.

Ours is small - but it houses the washer, dryer, baskets of ironing, coats, shoes, sports bags, school bags, shopping bags and all the vases and cake stands and only-used-for parties stuff.

I like mine.

We have a teeny utility room but to me it's pretty essential- I don't like the idea of washing machines in the kitchen, they just don't belong in there. Partly it seems odd to mix cooking and washing clothes. Partly it's because I don't like the look of them in there and dislike integrated washing machines (keeping the door shut all the time to keep the 'look' of the kitchen leads to mould inside). Partly I like being able to throw dirty clothes on the floor by the machine ready for the next wash.

We can't fit a tumble dryer in ours so that's in the airing cupboard. But it does have shelves where I can keep cleaning products out of the way of little hands. Plus a sink for washing our willies hands after using the attached cloakroom loo.

The house we're buying has a utility cupboard- so a stacked w/m and dryer, shelves and boiler in a cupboard opposite. As long as it keeps the w/m out of the kitchen I don't care.

My dream utility would have a w/m, dryer, a Sheila's maid airier or two, a big sink, cupboards for cleaning stuff and lightbulbs etc, a place for storing wet coats and shoes, direct access to outside drying space and a massive extractor fan to make sure the wet washing didn't cause damp. I may have thought more about my perfect utility room and any other room.

We built one when we extended. Before that the washing machine was in the tiny kitchen and we had a space at the back of the detached garage for the chest freezer and tumble dryer. Taking the clothes out to the garage in the snow and rain was horrid (although we also had a ceiling airer in there and it dries stuff really quickly!). Now we have a nice big utility with a deep sink, chest freezer, washing machine and dryer and lots of cupboards for tools, cleaning supply, Hoover, recycling bins and an ironing board in a drawer. It also has a downstairs loo tucked in there (with a door on it and a basin) and it's the ideal place to isolate sickly animals/deal with the nappy bucket/wash wellies etc.

We've just extended and built a utility room so we can have a Sheila maid and laundry stuff out of the way. Even though the work isn't finished yet the utility is already making a difference. It was a must have for us

I think I want to come and live in your utility room Teddy.

It's lunch hour again! My MN time hoho.

There is no way the utility room can double up as a mud room as there isn't any way we can connect it to the garden. No cellar or outbuilding. It used to be a children's home in the 50s, so it has odd proportions, but it has a fantastic garden and loads of the sort of weird features that makes an old building worth living in.

I'll try to put a plan up, if I can figure out how.

Does this work?

I'd say in an open plan living space, a utility room is a good idea even though it defeats the object of open plan

We converted our old, tiny kitchen into a utility room when we built an extension. The rest of the ground floor is pretty open plan except for a hall and downstairs wc.

The pluses were we didn't have to move the existing ugly boiler and incorporate in a gleaming new kitchen and we could keep our cheap & basic washer & tumble that had previously been in the garage without worrying they'd look rubbish in a new kitchen. Plus the noise from washer/drier/tumble is contained. Along with laundry baskets etc. We also bulk buy a lot of stuff (see the Costco thread in chat!) and have high shelves to store it on.

Is there an under the stairs space that you could use as a utility area? At least a stacked washing machine, tumble drier? From what I can make out, it does seem like inserting a room into the current kitchen dimensions might spoil the proportions and disrupt the flow into other rooms (devil's advocate, sorry)

Ah Finn that's what DH says. The only place where it would fit in function-wise has a blank wall. DH says I'll get annoyed with the dampness in no time.

Understairs is an option I hadn't thought of!

Could you have a utility cupboard instead? Extra deep cupboard with room for a washing machine, maybe an airer over and extractor fan, plus boiler and storage for ironing boards and cleaning stuff. That way you won't need an actual room and you could still shut the door on it all but you don't needThen maybe tumble dryer tucked under the stairs with room over for more crap cleaning products etc. Maybe along the wall next to the back (?) door?

Some good ideas here.

I love this one.

I have one and I love it. It doesn't have a sink, but it has a washer, dryer and the big fridge freezer in it. We also store mops, Hoover, brushes etc, with enough room to put the clothes horse up in it. Love being able to close the door on the loud machines!

Assuming that is what it will be like after you've knocked through and made your open plan kitchen -diner, I see your husbands point.
But! Where there's a will, there's a way! Where does the door at the bottom lead to? Could you close that off and make the room a proper L shape? It would mean that the fireplace would be in the corner, maybe make it seem intentional with a wood burning stove? (I'm assuming that is the social end of the room )

I wouldn't (and haven't ever) owned a house without one.
Mine have always been small but very very useful.
Space for washing machine, dryer, cupboards or shelves for cleaning stuff, pegs, lightbulbs, shoe cleaning stuff, buckets, ironing stuff etc
Racks for welly's and gardening shoes/gloves. My current one also has coatracks. My old one had the boiler in it.
I don't have a sink in this one but there is a big sink in the adjacentWC which I use for utility stuff.