Everyone loves a utility room. This is in fact one of the most important rooms to have in your house. In my opinion of course. It houses all of your cleaning products, laundry items and anything else you need to keep your home functioning. It’s great to have a utility room separate from your kitchen as you are (1) saving cupboard space and (2) have a separate area for washing and drying your laundry. Oh what I wouldn’t give for a utility room for all my laundry needs and to have a room where I can store my vacuum, mops and floor steamer.
If you are one of the lucky ones and have a utility room in your home, then these tips are definitely for you. Here are a few quick organising tips that will help make better use of your utility room:
Plan your space
It is important to make the space you have work for you. Plan, design and create your utility room carefully taking into consideration all of the issues you are currently having when it comes to cleaning and doing the laundry. Think about what would make your chores easier to complete. What would make it more appealing and easy? One example of drying towels is to install slatted shelves on your walls for your towels. This allows the air to go through and prevents the towels from staying wet and becoming mouldy (with a foul damp smell).
You could use Instagram and Pinterest to curate some ideas of what you would like to have in your utility room pinning all of your favourite designs and ideas on one board. Instagram allows you to “save” posts that speak out to you, in specific folders under your “saved” items. This way you have something to refer to when planning your space. Use these ideas to draw out the actual sizes of the room and start putting together the room with the sizes of the appliances you have found that you love.
If this sounds a little overwhelming and you need help to style and create your utility room (or any room in your home) then feel free to reach out and I can help you style and put together your dream home through my personalised private virtual styling service. Email me and we can start building your dream together.
Measure up & stack where possible
One piece of advice for those that are setting up their utility rooms from scratch or rebuilding is to measure all of your spaces and the appliances you want to install. Build the appliances around your space figuring out where each one would go before hanging any shelves or building cupboards. This ensures you make use of all the space not wasting any especially when space is not a luxury but also because it means the appliances will fit correctly.
When it comes to putting in your washer and dryer another great space-saving tip is to stack them. This allows you to make use of vertical space and makes it easier to take the washed laundry out and throw them straight into the dryer below. Pro tip: use a laundry basket to collect your washed (and dried) laundry by picking one that actually fits under the washer/ dryer door as this makes emptying the loads more efficient and easy.
Related Posts:
- Organise your home the Home Edit way
- Why you should be more organised
- Organising Favourites from The Container Store
Adapt furniture to your needs
One of the most difficult items to find storage seems to be the brooms and vacuums. It is easy to just try to squeeze them into cupboards. This just means they keep falling out every time you go to open the cupboard. Why not try removing shelving and sizing the cupboards according to the size of the various items you have. This allows for their height and gives you an organised, easy to access space.
Another option for storing brooms and vacuums is to make room between a wall and a cupboard to slide them in. This allows for easy retrieval and also keeps your utility room clean and tidy. You could also put hooks on the inside of cupboard doors for dustpans. These tips could actually work for those who do not have the luxury of space and don’t have a utility room. If your utility room is small and you are tight for space (or have no utility room at all) make use of wall space to put up a wall drying section which allows you to hang your laundry.
Resist stockpiling
On one hand, I do recommend purchasing “overstock” or “backstock” as some people refer to it. You always need a replacement item before your essentials run out. On the other hand, you don’t need to overbuy. If you buy supplies purely because they’re on offer, you end up storing products for months without using them. This causes extra clutter and takes up any available space you may have. This only leads to more clutter and of course mess.
The more things you have the harder it is to clean and tidy. The fewer things you have, you are more likely to use it up before going off to purchase more. Buy only what you need and plan it into your shopping list. Pro tip: have an inventory list of all your products and essentials (including backstock). This will help keep you up to date of when you need to purchase certain essentials.
Do you have a utility room? What’s your favourite part of your utility room?
If you enjoyed this post Pin for later or share!!
My laundry room looks bare compared to this. I am definitely gonna add a few organizers where possible. I just wish I can stack my machines, though. Thanks for this wonderful post.
I am so glad ny tips helped you! Thank you so much for reading x
This post out my utility room to shame I really need to get with the program. 😁 I really need to calm down on overstocked things.
Oh I wasn’t trying to make your utility room feel ashamed 🙈 Just a few tips I thought may help others x