Tips for Adding a Utility Room to your Home

A utility room can make a great addition to a home. With the kitchen often used as a social and entertainment area in modern houses, as well as the place where you prepare and enjoy meals, it makes sense to supplement this space with an additional room.

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You can place appliances like the washing machine and tumble dryer in a utility room, meaning there is less noise in the kitchen and more space for you to relax and enjoy yourself. By placing the ironing board and drying apparatus in the utility room, it can help to organise your housekeeping schedule. Utility rooms can also be good places to store your outdoor clothes – coats and muddy boots are best kept out of the kitchen for a number of reasons.

What’s more, a utility room is a much sought-after feature in today’s property market, which means creating one is likely to add significant value to your home and could help to attract buyers when you come to sell the place.

Here are a few tips for adding a utility room to your home:

Location

As with many things in the home, location is very important. If you’ve decided to create a utility room, you need to think carefully about where it will be situated before you start looking for builders through websites such as Ratedpeople.com.

Of course, there are two main options available to you – converting some existing space into a utility room, or extending the property to make room for one. The former option is more common among homeowners who just want to create a utility room and have no plans for adding other rooms at the same space. If you’ve decided to build a utility room as part of a larger home improvement project involving other major changes, then an extension will be more suitable.

Many people like to have their utility room close to the kitchen, but it does not necessarily have to be next door. If you have a garage that is rarely used, then some of this space could be put to better use. Alternatively, a downstairs lavatory with plenty of space could be repurposed as a utility room if you decide it is surplus to requirements.

The most important thing is to make sure the location is practical. How easy will it be to carry out the necessary plumbing and electrical installations for your new room? If you don’t think this through beforehand, additional costs are likely to stack up rapidly when you run into problems. This is where the advice of professional tradespeople can prove invaluable.

Design

It is worth thinking carefully about the design of the room. Although it will primarily be a functional space, you still want an area that looks good and fits in with the overall theme of the house. Simply placing a washing machine and a dryer in the room is likely to leave it feeling unfinished, and won’t encourage other members of the family to use it.

Disclosure: Commissioned Post