Does your utility room match the kitchen ? How different is it.

[8misskitty8]

We’re about to add a utility room to our house. Our current kitchen is light oak with black worktops and no longer available to buy as it is 14 years old but in good condition.
I’ve seen lovely light grey cabinets with a cream worktop but obviously totally different to our kitchen. Would it look strange to have such a difference between them ? Only people I know with utility rooms have either bought a new build so they match or they put a utility in while remodelling their kitchen so everything matches.
There will be a door between them.
The alternative would be to get light oak cabinets for the utility room and change the kitchen doors to match but that would cost about £2k extra which Dh said is a waste of money as the utility door will be closed most of the time and I should get the utility I really want which is the light grey one.

Does anyone have a utility completely different to the kitchen ? How different is it ? Any photos ?
Thank you.

Hello. Our utility is off the kitchen via a wide square arch no door. We have open shelves and hooks etc. no fitted kitchen units. I like it that way. The flooring is the same throughout.

We've just had our kitchen done so now our utility room doesn't match. We are planning on putting a toilet and sink in there in the future so we are going to have custom built units to house the washing machine, tumble dryer and boiler. I'm going to colour match the wood work though so it ties in.

I think they need to relate to each other in some way if they're only separated by a door. My dh would not give a stuff.

Ours doesn’t match kitchen at all, they’re separated by a door so they’re separate rooms in my mind.

Our kitchen and ultility was done by the previous owners- utility is similar to the kitchen cabinets but obviously cheaper.

The kitchen is decent quality with granite worktops, and the previous owners picked a very similar colour for the cabinets and worktops (but from Ikea or B&Q) in the utility.

It’s fine.

We did ours over ten years ago, can't remember where the stuff is from, but it's all basic cheap white stuff, white formica worktop, basic sink and taps, that doesn't match the kitchen at all. It's a utility room! Just make sure you have plenty of sockets and shelving.

In our case the rooms are adjacent but separate, and the utility room door is round a corner from the kitchen so nobody will see both rooms at once.

We're planning to have both done this year. The kitchen will be solid wood shaker style blue painted cabinets and a Dekton worktop. No point spending that money in the utility room, so it'll have grey melamine faced chipboard and cheap laminate worktop (actually reused from the existing kitchen).

Mine match now having had both redone about 18m ago.

Prior to that (fitted when the house was built about 20 years prior) the kitchen was oak units with a beigey-flecked laminate worktop and the utility had a white double sink unit and some white laminate worktop. Flooring was the same throughout.

It didn't look odd as they were separate rooms, but also there was only the 1 base-sink unit in the utility & no wall units - the rest of the space was a boiler (originally wall hung, replaced with a floor standing one), washing machine, tumble drier & fridge freezer.

You can see part of both rooms on this picture, the door was always open.

We're shortly embarking on an extension that will see our existing kitchen become a utility room. It's highly unlikely we'll have them match, we'll probably go cheap and cheerful for the utility room, but then the two rooms will not link at all. But even if they did, if the utility wouldn't really be seen or accessed by anyone, then I'd happily have them different.

We've just bought a house where the utility is done in Magnet and the main kitchen an expensive (?) German brand I've never heard of. You can't really see the utility from the main kitchen, so it's fine and a good way to save money on the whole thing. It is quite old now, so I will compare the price difference before deciding whether to do the same or not.

We are just doing up our utility room and it won't match the kitchen. Our kitchen is made of painted reclaimed pallets and scaffolding boards and the utility will have built in storage units built out of stained ply wood. We used to have kitchen cupboards in our utility and a work too but after five years we decided that it wasn't working for us

We’re planning a new kitchen extension and remodelling to create a new utility to replace our current one and they’re not going to match. The kitchen will be dark units for the L and something jazzier (maybe brass clad) for the island, but for the utility I’m going for a more vintage utility look with a 1950s kitchen cabinet I already have and a similar vintage small table, and I’ll be reusing the current kitchen units (oak). There’s a distinctly different purpose for the planned utility - bit like an old-school below-stairs kitchen - and then a deliberately showier look for the kitchen

Our utility needed a major overhaul as hadn't been touched for prob 30-odd years. It didn't match the kitchen (which is probably about 25 years old). We put in affordable cabinets and a laminate work surface in the utility, and painted our oak kitchen cabinets in the same colour, but kept the black granite worktops, and replaced handles to be the same throughout both rooms. So a refresh to the kitchen to match (ish) the utility.

But they only match because they both needed doing IYSWIM (kitchen is in a great state but was just dated). Although my DH is the king of matchy-matchy, so I think his brain would have exploded if they didn't tie in. Oh we retired as well in both rooms.

Re-tiled!

Nope. They are separated by a proper door and are separate rooms. They are similar but not the same. Kitchen units are light grey from Howdens and utility are dark grey from IKEA. Kitchen has marble worktops, utility has faux marble laminate. Both have subway tiles. So there is a theme but we couldn't afford to have it exactly the same. I quite like that it's different.