A utility room is such a useful space to have in a home. Whether you’re lucky enough to have a dedicated room, an area carved out from another room, or even just a cupboard, these are always high traffic areas that get a lot of use, and making the space work for you is key to helping your home run smoothly.
Make use of any spare wall space, floor to ceiling:
- These slatted boards are an ideal choice for a utility area. Easily fit hooks, baskets or bins that make your space work efficiently. Plus they can be reconfigured very easily.
- Pull down ironing board. I rarely iron these days, just the odd shirt here and there, so having a pull down ironing board, firstly, takes up less space, as there are no cumbersome legs to it and secondly, can be popped down and back up incredibly easily.
- Concertina clothes airers are brilliant. They hold loads of laundry, you don’t trip over them as you can with a free standing airer, and they tuck neatly against the wall when not in use.
- If you have a washing machine as well as a tumble drier, consider stacking them on top of one another, rather than having them side by side. This frees up valuable floor space.
- Consider if you need a door on your utility room or cupboard. Doors takes up valuable space (though pocket or sliding doors can help) and they can also potentially block light.
- Natural light is great, and you certainly don’t want to be forced to do the chores in a poorly lit environment but you could consider resizing or repositioning the windows to give you more wall space.
- A combination of open shelving and cupboards will allow you to keep what you use all the time to hand, and less frequently used items hidden away.
- Utilise the inside of cupboards doors with hooks and small shelves. Really useful for storing cleaning products, for example.
- A utility area can be hidden with a curtain, if it’s not located in it’s own room. Easy to pull and conceal what’s behind. And if you don’t have a utility area or room, why not try and carve out a little niche somewhere in the house. Having a dedicated utility space makes doing the laundry or those dirtier jobs a lot easier.
- Consider mounting a small hanging rail. Perfect for drying shirts or t-shirts on a hanger, as well as having somewhere to put them once they are ironed.
- If you’re like me and always finding loose change at the bottom of the washing machine, consider putting a donation box for your favourite charity into your utility room, then any coins that are found can go straight into the donation box.
- And don’t forget to have a bag or container for those single socks, awaiting their partner!
