Laundry and Utility Ideas from Eva Byrne, Architect & House Consultant

Think about your OVERALL space when deciding how to accommodate your laundry and utility functions. A separate room is great – but not if it ruins the flow of space and light in your home.
If you can manage a separate room, it will ideally be heated and ventilated to the outside. You’ll need a large space to fit a typical clothes horse. Use a simple hanging rail, like a wardrobe rail, as a good alternative. You can use it to air shirts and other garments on hangers. A pull-down airing rack works well too.
Where space is limited, see if you can accommodate the utility and laundry functions in a different ways. A large cupboard with a drying rail over the machines will manage the laundry of an average household load. You could locate it under the stairs or in any other space measuring 60cm wide x 65 cm deep.
A heated towel rail is an excellent source of heat all cases. It provides both general heat for airing clothes and also somewhere to hang small items such as socks etc. A multi-bar heated towel rail will be more useful in this regard than a rail with fewer, more widely spaced bars.
In terms of storage, allow for a tall cupboard for brooms, mops and hoover either within your Utility Room or elsewhere. It could be incorporated within the kitchen or under the stairs. The back of a door is a useful place for storing the ironing board.

Our “Utility” area is housed under the stairs, with the washing machine, hot-water cylinder and associated storage all located here. Modern machines are generally quiet, so noise intrusion is not a problem. This is important, given that our ground floor is an open-plan design.
The pipework associated with the hot water cylinder generates a low level of heat for the space. The manifolds from the under-floor generate further heat in the winter months.
We air clothes on hangers on a hanging rail in the space. It also fits a small folding clothes horse. This is a huge bonus in the house, meaning that clothes airing can be conveniently and unobtrusively catered for. Items awaiting ironing are stored on the worktop above the machines.
The children’s climbing frame was a great spot to air clothes outside in its day!

Contact Eva Byrne to arrange a 2 hour House Consultation to explore how to manage the Laundry and Utility areas in your home.