Utility rooms are the second hearts of a home, just behind the kitchen. They supply heating and cooling, and hot water. They are often where the family’s washer and dryer reside. Imagine your home without hot water or heat? However, unlike the kitchen, they are frequently neglected and almost never remodeled. Yes, on occasion someone may put in a shelving unit or organize a bin or two; that’s nice but it doesn’t solve fundamental problems like the practical flow of the room. A customer recently asked me to redesign his dysfunctional utility room. The remodeled didn’t add fancy wall tiles or a wood floor, rather I made the space more efficient and usable. See my photos for more details.
Here is the original room. The washer and dryer are right in the way of the door. The water heater was inadequate for this customer’s needs, The fridge was next to the water heater, the legged washtub was in the middle of “nowhere,” and the water softener was in the middle of a wall. The customer was not using the grey cabinets on the far wall, so they were just taking up space.Here you can see that I moved the door which opened up the space. Now the washer and dryer can reside next to a wall. I changed out the water heater to one that is 75 gallons. This is a summer home that often has 10-20 guests. I placed the fridge more conveniently and I also moved the water softener and the sink. I removed the cabinets that were not being used, and patched and primed the walls. Lastly, I added a dryer booster fan as the dryer’s run was long. Here is a view from a different angle. The old cabinets were removed, and the sink was replaced with a hanging one to give the owner a bit more “below”space. This makes it easier to clean the floor. This arrangement also allowed me to put the customer’s large ice maker next to the fridge. Like with like makes life easier.
On the surface these changes may not be dramatic, but combined they make this customer’s life easier on many levels. Remember form follows function!
