Bigger Kitchen or bigger utility??

9 years ago

What to do?! We currently have rear extension plans drawn up for small utility and larger kitchen. My current thinking is to increased the size of the utility to include more (cheaper) cabinetry for kitchen items I don't use evey day. This will make the kitchen smaller, but hopefully the kitchen cabinetry spend will be less too.

The current dimensions are..

utility 1400 x2850
kitchen 5321 x 3660

The utility is accessed from the kitchen and has an external door. To increase size of the utility I'm dictated by an existing window by the external door. In the small utility plans the window is in the kitchen, to increase the size of the utility the wall will be moved to the other side of the window.

The new dimensions would be..

utility room: 2250 x 2850
kitchen 4471 x 3360

The kitchen will have cabinetry on two walls and there will be an island. There are no corner cupboards in the kitchen as that is where the entrance to the utitily will be (if that makes sense!). I want to avoid a pokey looking kitchen.

Additional information. We have a garage for storage which we may eventually convert. Having a larger utility could be useful for future storage needs.

What do you think? Any advice gratefully received!

Featured Answer

Emmanuelle

9 years ago

I would keep the original smaller utility room , but organise it ultra efficiently . If it is 1.40m wide, you could run low units the whole length and still have 80 cm to walk along! I would use walls to hang items thanks to shelves or board of wooden pegs shaker style. Lots of hooks for cycling helmets and brooms; don't forget lower shelves for muddy boots and trainers. It has to look good and every things has to have a place. Then you can enjoy a spacious kitchen.

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Comments (9)

123marymary
9 years ago
Hi there,

A friend did just that - has quite a large utility and a neater kitchen. The utility seems to have become the dumping ground for everything - laundry, rubbish re-cycling, bulk buys, vegetables, a lot of equipment storage ( a halogen oven, electric wok, spare dishwasher, two ironing boards and a suit press, surplus crockery and cutlery, cleaning materials and equipment , baking tins, deep fat fryer, sports gear, pet food, etc....) It is cluttered and not functioning as she had planned.

I would start with a list of what I need on a weekly basis; it would be very handy to have those items in the actual kitchen. I found a larder press to be invaluable, as well as a large fridge/freezer. If you bake weekly, keep the most used baking stuff in the kitchen. For example, I decided to stop making cup-cakes and focus on tray-bakes instead because that way I only needed one tray, no cup cake cases etc. I have limited space so simplifying worked for me. Shelve out the garage, and keep stuff used only occasionally out there. Personally, I got rid of all that surplus stuff and simply decided to manage without - but it could easily be stored in the garage. If you are unsure about stuff, pack it in boxes, label it, and put a "get rid of date" on the box ( you can always revise that later if you feel you need it) Then store it in the garage.

I find less is definitely more for me anyway...for example, my Magimix sits on my worktop and is used almost every day. Anything it can't do I simply don't do! I do find though that having a sink in my utility room works wonder, keeps the kitchen much neater - I wash dirty boots, veg, etc out there and it definitely helps.
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OnePlan
9 years ago
It very much depends on how you use stuff ! I design a few dual kitchens overseas - wet kitchen and kitchen - but often that's more practical as there's more than one person working in these kitchens ... Then there's a separate laundry too !!

Have a long hard think about how you want the rooms to work - I'm finding increasingly in UK projects that the kitchens are home to fridge, freezer, dishwasher, pantry, cooking appliances and vacuum and cleaning stuff and the Utility seems to be more of a laundry room nowadays ...
livt thanked OnePlan
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Jonathan
9 years ago
I think the larger more impressive kitchen will add more value to future buyers
livt thanked Jonathan
tamp75
9 years ago
As others have said it depends on how you plan to use the space really. Have you marked out the dimensions of the utility on the floor to give you a clearer idea of how much space there will be? 1.4 m seems quite narrow to me, although I know utilities often are. If you're planning to have a run of cupboards along one wall, will there be enough room to open the doors freely? If you're likely to use it for ironing, will there be enough room for you to stand comfortably at your ironing board? Personally I'd go for the slightly bigger utility.
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maggieandrichard
9 years ago
I would go for a larger kitchen. I have a very small utility (only 8ft x 6ft) with door at both ends so limited floor space. However it houses the washer, tumble dryer and large fridge. I have also been able to incorporate a 8ft run of wall cupboards including one long cupboard for brooms. It works really well and I can store all my cleaning products, pet food etc there so my kitchen only has three wall cupboards and looks really spacious.
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Jonathan
9 years ago
I might also stack the washer and dryer to save space. Perhaps you don't need a sink in there? With a couple of larder cupboards you will have loads of room.
livt thanked Jonathan
livt
Original Author
9 years ago
Thank you everyone for your replies. The utility will mainly be used as a laundry room so maybe it will be plenty big enough for that purpose. I wouldn't be ironing in there - that is only done in front of the tv!
LTS
9 years ago
Our utility is 3.7 x 1.5 & is ample big enough. The kitchen/diner is 5.5 x 3.6. At the moment one of the 1.5 walls house the washing machine with tumble dryer stacked on top & FF next to it. We have a work top running the rest of the full length of the 3.7 wall. It is a tip in there & we are currently (still) considering whether to make it smaller so that we gain more space in the kitchen/diner. If we don't make it smaller we will out units along one wall. There is only 1 door to the utility. Your measurements are similar to ours & I wouldn't want my utility to be any bigger really. HTH & good luck :)
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Bigger Kitchen or bigger utility??

Emmanuelle

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