Utility room reveal (including sourcelist)

A utility doesn’t have to be utilitarian. For a room that is mainly to do with mundane but necessary daily chores, it was important for me to make my utility a pretty room that made me smile rather than die a little inside every time I needed to do laundry. I also needed to optimise the usefulness of the narrow space that it is. I love how all the details have come together and now pottering about in here is never a chore. 🙂

I have worked with some fantastic brands on my project and as such, this post includes some PR products (denoted by *) and discounted products (denoted by **) as part of these collaborations.

LAYOUT & DESIGN

The utility is a long narrow space off the kitchen, in the new side extension that we built last year, as shown in the ground floor layout below.

It may only be 1.5m wide, but I wanted to keep it feeling as airy and open as possible, while also combining light and dark elements for impact.

The design comprises of a combination of tall and base cabinets, no wall units but instead a long oak floating shelf with a hanging rail, tongue-and-groove clad walls, and a bench which serves as the ‘mud room’ area (for wellies). The opposite wall has a peg rail running along the length of the wall.

Product sources are linked in the text, and there is also a full sourcelist at the end of the post.

CABINETRY

Keeping with a modern classic style like my kitchen, I chose shaker style cabinets from DIY Kitchens with custom painted doors. The colour I chose was Kigali from Paint & Paper Library, described as a blackened denim, which I love in this space contrasted with the other pale, natural and gold finishes in the room. The tongue-and-groove cladding is painted in Little Greene’s intelligent eggshell in French Grey Mid, which beautifully picks up on the warm grey tones of the worktop.

The tall cabinets, neatly tucked into the far corner, belie the amount of modification required to fit them around the combi boiler, the underfloor heating manifold and the RSJ beam spanning the width of the room. The cabinets are finished with gorgeous weighty black knurled button knobs.

OPEN STORAGE

Doing away with wall units does so much for opening up a space like this. Instead, I have a gorgeous floating oak shelf spanning the entire wall space, with a rail hung from it. The black hardware and rail tie in beautifully with the black aluminium glazed door.

Along the length of the opposite wall we created a peg rail.

I love peg rails for turning an unused wall into something useful and pretty. You can get ready-made peg rails, but unless you just want a small rail, buying several to join together can become expensive. However, with some basic DIY skills, you can create your own with a length of timber and shaker pegs. [Our method was loosely based on this tutorial by The Grit and Polish (minus the shelf part).] Alternatively, you can achieve something similar simply with hooks.

LAUNDRY APPLIANCE

I wanted a streamlined look uninterrupted by appliances and also didn’t want to lose too much space to appliances as it’s a small room, so instead of a washing machine and a tumble dryer, I opted for an integrated washer dryer* from AO.com. I love how this machine quietly and efficiently handles all our laundry needs while staying out of sight behind a door.

SINK & TAP

During the design stages of my kitchen and utility, I swayed a lot between contemporary and traditional sink and tap options, and in the end decided on the best of both worlds by going for different styles in both rooms. The kitchen has an undermount sink with a contemporary mixer tap while the utility has the more traditional Belfast sink + gold bridge tap combination. It’s fantastic to have this extra sink in the utility for keeping messy jobs out of the kitchen like washing paint brushes or potting plants. I’ll be honest here and say that I find this tap a bit splashy so wouldn’t recommend it if you want something with more refined functionality. This tap was budget friendly, looks lovely and is fine for the few jobs we use it for, but in future, I may swap it for a Perrin & Rowe tap.

WORKTOP

Having decided on a Belfast sink for the utility, I started thinking about worktops and considered stone offcut lengths from local stonemasons, wood (but put off by the maintenance given it would get wet), ceramic and solid surface materials. As soon as I came across Mistral worktops, I knew my search had ended.

This worktop is a thing of beauty! It’s the first thing everyone notices in here. New visitors always run their hand over it wondering if it is concrete, and I get great pleasure in explaining more about this wonderful material. It is a Mistral solid surface worktop and upstand* in the Moonscape colour, which does in fact look like hand-swirled concrete. It is gorgeous! I love having the look of concrete in my utility room, but with all the benefits and practicalities of an acrylic-based resin solid surface material – durable, hygienic, stain resistant due to being non-porous, and replenishable (i.e. like wood, it can be sanded and buffed to remove general wear and tear marks that may accumulate over the years).

It can be cut on site, thus saving on expensive templating costs that stone requires. This worktop was expertly fitted by Midland Worktop Fitters – have a look at my ‘reno pt 3’ story highlights on instagram to see them in action.

LIGHTING

I have two forms of lighting in this room – general lighting via a row of downlights and task lighting by way of a tiltable pendant light hung near the tall cabinets above the worktop as seen in the photos above. The light switch is a gorgeous brass screwless two gang toggle switch* from Elesi.

MUD ROOM

The space between the base cabinets and the back door is essentially our mud room area – a bench where wellies are put on and taken off. With the old kitchen, the back door opened into the kitchen so muddy wellies were traipsed into the house and I would have to mop the dirt off the kitchen floor often several times a day. Not any more. 🙂

For a small room, there was a fair bit of work and cost involved here, but to me it has been entirely worth it. This is the first time we have a utility room – a space to keep the mess out of the kitchen – and I love it so much, I never want to be without one again! Too many utility rooms are unloved and stark as people think they are just a room for chores. But isn’t that the very reason they should be pretty rooms, so chores don’t feel like chores? 🙂

SOURCELIST

Cabinetry: Stanbury bespoke painted range from DIY Kitchens

Cabinetry colour: Paint & Paper Library Kigali

Cupboard knobs from Plank Hardware (click here for a 15% discount from Plank!)

Integrated washer dryer* from AO

Mistral worktop and upstand in Moonscape colour* from Karonia Surfaces

Belfast sink from Tap Warehouse

Gold bridge tap from Aqva

Two gang brass toggle light switch* from Elesi

Brass pendant light from Spark & Bell with large globe LED bulb from Amazon

Flooring: Impressive range laminate in Soft Oak Medium** with Silent Walk underlay** from Quick Step

Aluminium glazed door from Duration Windows