How important is a utility room?

Owain_Moneysaver

If you believe St Sarah of Beeny, "dining kitchen" is demanded by the family market.

Mum_of_3_3

I fyou're planning on being there for a long-time then I build the utility as it seems to be the best thing for you.

I really wouldn't worry about what the market wants now as in 10 years buyers could have a different wishlist to the ones they have now. For instance everyone now talks about open plan living, but 10/15 years ago people loved separate rooms.

M_o_3

getmore4less

it all depends how the layout works.

Where are all the doors,

where is the dining room in relation to the kitchen(could you knock through)

Do you formal dine

Could you make a room off the dinning room

Whats the primary use

As a laundry you might want room to hang washing and have a dehumidifyer, an extra sink is usefull if a door to the outside space for boots/coats etc

Rather than a seperate room what about partition made out of base/wall units that you can access from both sides

can you put up a scale room layout to get ideas

Cissi

I agree that you should look at what works best for you if you're planning to stay for a good while. Chances are it will also appeal to someone else down the line

But if you ask me what I'd prefer (family of 4, including 2 small children, plus a dog) I would value an eat-in kitchen above a utility room. I'd go as far as saying that even if it's a choice between smaller kitchen with space just about for a table plus separate utility, or larger kitchen/family room I'd choose the larger kitchen. Yes, I agree that a utility room entrance would be attractive, but to me a spacious kitchen adds far more value to family life.

BTW, I actually have both - a spacious kitchen plus separate utility room - and I find that we use the French doors from the kitchen extension to the garden much more than the utility room entrance (which leads to the side), because the garden is dog- (and kiddie-)proof. We have a large, soft mat inside the door which helps with the mud and it isn't too bad, although I do need to mop the kitchen floor most days :eek:

lincroft1710

I agree with nearlyrich.

skintchick

Owain_Moneysaver wrote: »

If you believe St Sarah of Beeny, "dining kitchen" is demanded by the family market.

Certainly is by this family, but if you can knock through to the dining room then stick a utility on as one of those would be great too. For me, a utility isn;t a must-have, but if you want one, then have one!

Kitchen doesn;t sound small - my current one is 6ft by 9ft I think - but a lot of people do like to put a table in the kitchen, and that is one reason why we are moving, because I want a kitchen diner.

clairehi

Floor plan would help a lot!

There is a strong argument to do whatever suits you as occupiers best as you can't second guess the future and you may as well be happy while you are living there.

Looking at the sizes of your other rooms, your kitchen would feel very cramped by comparison if you went the route of partitioning to make a separate utility.

Also, how many people actually use their dining room every day compared with eating in the kitchen?I would ideally rework the downstairs layout to get a big kitchen/diner plus utility and I would be looking for another use for the dining room.

The other option is whether you can create a utility somewhere else perhaps next to the downstairs loo.

We remodelled our downtairs last year to create a large kitchen/diner, and our old, hardly used, dining room is now a study/family room.. We squeezed in a tiny utility room and downstairs WC in a space which is only 5 foot by 9 foot total . it cost us quite a lot to knock down walls and build new ones but the space works so much better.

louiseg0151

I've just moved into a house that has a smaller kitchen and utility room. The kitchen is only 10.9" x 8.6" but as it's bigger than our previous house it's perfect. Obviously, we don't have room for a dining table in the kitchen but we have a seperate dining room for that.

Also, it might be worth noting that having the utility room has meant the space where washing machine and dryer would have been in the kitchen have been used for extra cupboards so plenty more storage :-)

Our utility room is also quite small (space for washer, dryer and one cupboard with a sink above it) and also a door to the side of the house

mqandy

Kitchen Diner over Kitchen and Utility room every time.

Of course, large Kitchen Diner AND a Utility room would be nice, but don't sacrifice one for the other!

That said, if the kitchen isn't very useable as it is anyway, it might be nicer to have the two separate rooms.