Tiny utility?

[Andthenanothercupoftea]

Based on the thread about how useful people find utility rooms... Does this hold even if they are small?

The house we are hoping to buy has a tiny one (1.5m x1.6m). I was thinking of knocking it through to make the kicthen a bit bigger.

Currently it has a door to the garden, a doorway to the kitchen (nothing to close) a stacked tumble dryer/washing machine and a big fridge. There's no floor space for anything else other than walking through.

If we kept it we'd have our washer/dryer (one thing) in there and maybe relocate the boiler (needs replacing anyway). Would this space still be useful? I guess we could also fit the cat bowls and maybe an airer in there (possibly a ceiling one?)

In other houses on the street the utility is twice the size, but this one has been chopped in half to put in a downstairs loo.

If the utility is between the toilet and kitchen I would keep it as many don't like a toilet next to the kitchen.

I would probably use it as a washing room so, washer dryer, washing basket, linen basket and ceiling airer if room. If there is room for the boiler that would be useful also

Cost/benefit ratio.....you'd still need the floor space for those items. You aren't gaining worktop space as there isn't any. It doesn't sound like you want to redo the whole kitchen so is it really worth it for the price?

I'd keep it simply to keep the ugly washing machine out of the kitchen and being on show, we have ours in the kitchen and it ruins the glow of the cupboards in my opinion. Plus if it houses your back door it's a buffer for muddy boots before stepping into your kitchen, I'd keep if I were you. You'll probably find you can store stuff in there like a brush, ironing board etc that you just don't want out in show xx

If keep it. The washing machine/dryer being in a separate room means the kitchen won’t have laundry noise. Clean run of cupboards in the kitchen as pp said. The other option would be to knock the loo and utility back into one room for more floor space - still keep loo in there just have it all as one room. A friend has just done this in an extension and calls it the lootility.

*I’d keep it

The other option would be to knock the loo and utility back into one room for more floor space

I know someone who did this, & it worked well, the problem the OP has is there's a door to the outside & the kitchen & I wouldn't want to walk through a toilet to get into the garden.

Thanks all. The loo has a separate entrance, I think they've just put a stud wall between the two.

@Mumdiva99 we will be redoing the kitchen relatively soon as it's a)mostly freestanding units b) not to our taste and c) needs replastering anyway. I was thinking removing the walls would make it feel a little bigger and let in light from the backdoor.

I was dead set on getting rid, but now I think I'll keep an open mind as we live with it for a few months.

I like our utility as we have a lounge kitchen diner set up (with another lounge) but nice not listening to the washer and dryer going

We have a similar space and I definitely wouldn’t get rid of it. Ours just about fits washer/tumble dryer, boiler and very thin cupboard for cleaning materials.

Yeah....love with it a bit and then decide. Light is really important. But if it's a load bearing wall then a bigger job.

We had one like that. It was so useful and I miss it as we don’t have one at all now.

Cat got fed in there, kept him away from the dog, could dump really muddy stuff in there, close door and you couldn’t hear tumble dryer or washing machine…good as we ate in kitchen.

Bin was in there.

Great for an extra cold space sometimes. We had a counter top spare fridge in there, the mop, the brush.

We are putting one in our new house, it’s going to be a bit bigger but still small due to doors and putting in a downstairs loo.

Keep, definitely. Washing and food prep don’t mix unless there’s no choice

We have pretty much what you describe. We put a door in the doorway so we could close off the noise of the washing machine. We put a hanging rail in there but we didn't use the back door to the garden that much so moving hanging washing out of the way of the door swinging open wasn't much of an issue. It didn't go across the door.

You aren't gaining any real space by knocking through to the kitchen, no extra worktop etc. Will the fridge freezer fit in the kitchen anywhere? The only thing we considered was knocking through and building in floor to ceiling cupboards to hide the washing machine/tumble dryer and opening the door every time we used the tumble dryer.

We've for a similar sized utility (but only one door, our into the kitchen). It's a great asset.

It contains a washer and dryer, a shelf above them for two washing baskets, and detergents, a high shelf above that for medicines and oddments such as humidifiers, and dehumidifiers. Then another deep shelf above the door for my enormous stockpile of loo roll (not Covid related, we always buy in bulk).

We also store airers, the small step ladder, and our basic tool box in there to save us digging through the shed for it.