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Utility room ideas: how to make these functional spaces look as stylish as possible
While utility rooms might not be the most glamorous room in the house, many of us crave this dedicated haven of organisation. Historically, they were the domain of domestic staff, sealed off from the rest of the house by green baize doors and accessible only by narrow staircases. Today, however, they receive more traffic and are just as likely to be closely positioned (and aesthetically aligned) to the main living spaces of a home – and we’ve rounded up plenty of beautiful utility room ideas to inspire your own space.
A utility room is a functional space, often positioned next to the kitchen or boot room, used to house larger household appliances like washing machines, dryers and even sometimes chest freezers. It may also serve a double purpose, perhaps including elements of a boot room, scullery or flower room. A great utility room should help you to perform daily tasks and chores efficiently, as well as keep unsightly appliances out of sight, which feels increasingly important as we all spend more time in our kitchens.
What you include in a utility room will be wholly dependent on your individual household. If you do several loads of laundry each week, you might want to consider investing in a couple of washing machines and dryers to help things run more smoothly. Designer Rita Konig recommends ‘two washing machines in family houses with more than three people. This is not as unecological as it sounds – you just do things in half the time. It is maddening waiting for a load of whites to end in order to put in a load of colours or delicates.’
Many of the utility rooms on our pages also include a Sheila Maid or overhead airer, a device for drying and airing laundry that can be raised and lowered on a pulley, so it can be kept out of everyone’s way. If you need to accommodate additional food storage, fridges and freezers in your utility room, make sure you carve out enough space for this. As well as keeping her ironing board, steamer equipment and Miele iron press in the utility room, Rita also has a freezer and coffee machine, which is ‘especially useful if the utility room is near the bedrooms – it is nice to be able to make coffee upstairs in the morning before venturing downstairs’.
A utility room is usually positioned next to the kitchen, although this isn’t necessarily the most practical place. ‘In family houses,’ says Rita, ‘I recommend putting them close to the bedrooms so the laundry can be done near to where it all comes from and has to go back to.’ She also notes that ‘it is not necessarily the most practical thing to have them in the basement or near the kitchen’, but it depends on how multi-functional the room is going to be. If your utility room is also doubling up as a scullery, pantry or a flower-arranging room, you may want it to be downstairs after all.
Although this is largely a functional space, chances are you will be spending a fair bit of time here, so it is important that it doesn’t feel off-puttingly bleak. Invest in some good tiles and countertops, high-end taps (you tend to notice the things you touch regularly), pretty lights and a pleasing paint colour. Rita’s own laundry room is laid with Popham Design tiles (‘quite the extravagance’), as the patterns help to liven up the small space and make the chore of doing laundry feel less onerous.
Tongue-and-groove wall panelling can also add character and help to hide ventilation or drainage systems. Choosing stylish basics, such as brass rails for hanging laundry or stain-resistant marble countertops (as seen in the utility room of Beata Heuman’s Sussex cottage) helps to elevate this space without sacrificing its primary function.
If there’s one thing we see again and again that adds an appealing touch, it is a lovely under-counter curtain. These can be used to hide storage under sinks or to disguise appliances. It is the perfect way to soften the space and add some pattern and texture.
Utility room ideas from the House & Garden archive
Helen Cathcart1/26A Belgian bluestone worktop provides a handy laundry counter in this calm and considered seaside house by Isabella Worsley. The skirt fabric is in Le Gracieux’s elegant ‘Keshte’ linen and the wall lights are from Holloways of Ludlow.
Christopher Horwood2/26In an 18th-century workers’ cottage in Greenwich, interior and production designer Anna Rhodes has created a charming family house, which she shares with her partner, BAFTA award-winning documentary maker Fred Scott and their son. Downstairs, in the cellar that was ‘filled with stuff’ when Anna and Fred arrived, they have created a bright, airy space. Curtains are a great way to jazz this kind of space up – the fabric is from The Cloth Shop.
Yuki Sugiura3/26In Matilda Goad’s London house, she has combined wall pannelling in Farrow & Ball’s ‘Bancha’ green with an under-counter curtain in an Ian Mankin ticking to help prettify and soften the room. A rail runs above, providing ample space to hang clothes for drying and airing.
Christopher Horwood4/26Fresh and elegant, this utility room in a country house by Studio Squire is an attractive space to spend time knee-deep in laundry or cut flowers. We particularly like the use of the chik blind (from Opium London), which has a gently utilitarian feel. The skirt beneath the basin is made up in Colefax & Fowler ‘Dart Stripe’ in Tomato.
Boz Gagovski5/26If you have a small utility room, why not make it a charming place to spend time by splashing out on a pretty wallpaper? The laundry room in designer Stella Weatherall’s London house is papered in Pierre Frey’s ‘La Pannonie’ (BP330002), paired with joinery in Sanderson's ‘Yacht Blue’. The splash back is made from Mosaic Factory zellige tiles.
Milo Brown6/26Interior designer Lonika Chande has transformed an owner's rather dark childhood home in Holland Park into a light-filled oasis perfect for family. The utility room was a necessary addition to the house. With LAB Architects, Lonika brought more natural light to the space by installing a skylight. The utility room's doors have a decorative fretwork that acts as ventilation. Inside, cabinetry is painted in Yellow-Pink by Little Greene and the worktop is a sky-blue Formica. The flooring is a chequerboard linoleum.
Michael Sinclair7/26With her innate sense of proportion and symmetry, interior designer Pallas Kalamotusis has capitalised on the lofty dimensions of a hotchpotch mansion flat in west London to create a harmonious home. The all-white space is a laundry-cum-guest loo, a sensible (but still chic) mix.
Ngoc Minh Mgo8/26When interior designer Harriet Anstruther took possession of her run-down Sussex farmhouse, she put her eclectic mark on it, while keeping its original features. This room, though technically a scullery found through the kitchen, is also used for flower arranging.
Paul Massey9/26A handsome Victorian house in Cambridge that had seen better days has been respectfully rejuvenated by the architect Neil Dusheiko, taking inspiration from the renowned mid-century Case Study Houses in California. The core of the house holds the utility and laundry area and a guest bathroom, all concealed behind beautifully detailed oak veneered cladding. This blends into the engineered oak floor, while Vitra’s ‘Vegetal’ chair echoes the organic form of the ‘Coral’ pendants.
Christopher Horwood10/26Decorator Victoria von Westenholz, working with her longtime friend Xenia Buckhurst, has infused the interiors of the cottage where Xenia lives with warmth and a welcoming atmosphere. In what was once the kitchen, a smart, striped Décors Barbares blind in 'Naboika Red' hangs above the sink. The walls are painted in Farrow & Ball's ‘Minster Green’. A Décors Barbares cushion in ‘Rimski Blue’ provides a comfortable spot for taking boots off.
Simon Brown11/26By cleverly reconfiguring the space and adding in a harmonious blend of new and vintage furniture, Beata Heuman and her team offer a masterclass in enlivening the blank canvas that was this London apartment. The room that most excited Beata and Caroline, and which they designed first, was the utility room. The cabinetry is all custom designed with doors painted in ’Stone Blue’ from Farrow & Ball and BH Coin doorknobs. The flooring is a red and cream chequered lino and the counter top is custom stainless steel with an integrated sink.
Christopher Horwood12/26Digital creative and brand consultant Lucy Williams has tackled her first renovation with confidence and flair, filling the Victorian terrace with bold colour and considered pieces. After ‘years of drying laundry in [the] kitchen’, Lucy knew she wanted to put the utility room upstairs. The nook is painted in Farrow & Ball's Dimity and the thin cupboard to the side conceals the ironing board. To make the ‘whole thing feel a bit less utilitarian and softer’, linen curtains and vintage wall plates were employed.
Simon Brown13/26Unifying the vast proportions of a barn conversion and its adjoining 17th-century manor house is no easy task, but with a light touch and a delicate colour scheme, Caroline Riddell has achieved a pleasing sense of harmony. Off the passageway between the barn and home is a utility area, complete with reclaimed floor tiles from Bert & May.
Owen Gale14/26When Joanna Plant and her husband Nick upsized into a semi-detached 1920s house in Acton Town, they were embarking on a decades-long journey to shape and adapt their comfortable family home. The curtains in the utility room – Joanna’s favourite – are made from a vintage French mattress cover which she cut up and sewed herself. The tiles are from Bert & May and the hanger is a classic Pulleymaid.
Paul Massey15/26A cottage in a Sussex village has been transformed into a distinctive family home by the designer Beata Heuman, who has given the interiors a bold update with her confident use of colour and playful blend of styles. The smart utility room has brass wall lights from Visual Comfort and cupboard façades in Pierre Frey’s ‘Aquila’ wallpaper.
Owen Gale16/26The couple behind Buchanan Studio have taken a blank canvas of an Edwardian house in north-west London and transformed it into an airy, bright and deeply comfortable home for themselves and their young family. The laundry room is built on to the back of the larder. Appliances are hidden away behind curtains made from Buchanan Studio's ‘Stripe Two Vert’ linen.
James McDonald17/26The cabinets in the utility room of this riverside house designed by Kate Guinness are painted in Papers and Paints' ‘Apsley House Railings’. Adam Bray's ‘Fela ticking stripe’ has been used for the sink curtain.
Simon Brown18/26Salvesen Graham painted utility cupboards in Farrow and Ball's ‘Bancha’ in this unusual Georgian home, affectionately called the ‘Clock House’.
Simon Brown19/26In the same unusual Georgian home, storage was built underneath the counter in this utility room space. The mustard curtain (Salvesen Graham's ‘Zig Zag Stripe Mustard') keeps the space looking tidy. The walls are painted in Farrow and Ball's ‘Stone’ whilst the woodwork is ‘Stone Blue’. The taps are from Waterworks.
Christopher Horwood20/26This first-floor laundry room in this London home is painted in Paint & Paper Library's 'Rouge II'. Tongue and groove panelling combines beautifully with the units, which were made by Howdens to interior designer Natasha Howard's design. Checkerboard lino lines the floor, while a frilly pendant from Retrouvius provides a pretty finishing touch.
Øivind Haug21/26In a historic rectory in rural Kent, the architect Ptolemy Dean has brought its disparate array of architectural styles into harmony, enabling decorator Alexis Wylie to create inviting interiors with bohemian touches. In the laundry room, a drying rack on the ceiling means that laundry isn't taking up space on the floor, while the zinc-topped table is from Alexis Wylie.
tom mannion22/26The combined utility and flower room in this Oxfordshire house decorated by Max Rollitt has a relaxed, layered feel – created with a mix of freestanding pieces, including a reclaimed sink, rather than built-in units. A curtain in Robert Kime’s ‘Tansy’ linen cotton hides cleaning products while keeping them easily accessible. ‘Antique stained-glass lanterns and a vintage painting were chosen to provide colour and character,’ explains Max.
Michael Sinclair23/26Having seen the potential of a rundown Cotswold farmhouse with outbuildings, Catherine Chichester has devoted years to their restoration, drawing inspiration from their original features and introducing elements from her Belgian heritage. The kitchen transitions into this tidy utility room, with a washing machine and dryer stacked at the far end, hooks for baskets, and a curtain hiding further storage.
Paul Massey24/26In Carlos Garcia’s Norfolk manor house, this dual pantry-utility room adjoins the kitchen. Open shelves display homemade jams and chutneys. Curtains in a gingham from Ian Mankin hide additional storage. Carlos bought the table from his gardener for £5 and painted its legs in ‘Mole’s Breath’ by Farrow & Ball.
Ngoc Minh Ngo25/26Exposed original beams give a rustic feel to this scullery in Harriet Anstruther’s farmhouse. The space, accessed through the kitchen, features a butler farm sink and a curtained under-sink area for a classic country style design.
‘You really have to listen to a house like this,’ says Harriet. ‘There are no straight lines here, and there is nothing that doesn't have a hole or a chip or a bird in it. But if you spent your time worrying about spiders and symmetry, you wouldn't live here.’
Paul Massey26/26In Alastair Hendy's charming restored Tudor home, the rustically-designed utility room is used primarily to store logs. Foliage decorates a drying rack for plates above an industrial-looking sink.
