Re-Discover The Many Uses Of A Utility Room

Designing a Functional Utility Room

The kids are in and out, so are the animals. Oh, I forgot to mention the backyard project your husband is working on. Oh My, it’s all getting dirty, clothing, boots, shoes, the floor, the hallway everything. Whatever the reason, keeping the outdoors out-of-doors isn’t easy. Mud travels stealthily when packed into the crevices of gardening boots and pets’ paws. Clinging sand waits to dry-and-drop only after it gets into home territory in all the wrong places. Snow turns invisible inside, and leaves a mess behind. It’s always something isn’t it?

What is the solution? A New Utility Room Reborn

This is the perfect solution to a day in and day out problem. Your new utility room can come to the rescue. It acts as the home’s gatekeeper, helping relieve the kids, the dog, your freshly potted plants of their accompanying dirt and takes care of one mess after another all day long.

Every home has one right? The role the utility room plays is fast becoming an issue. It’s an important role and a major reason why this room is gaining prominence in home design.

According to leading designers like Diana Schrage from Kohler, they are saying that the utility room is one of the new emerging spaces in the American home. The cramped mud room of yesteryear, typically wedged between garage and kitchen, has blossomed into today’s spacious, multi-functional home management center, complete with a water source and utility sink. This isn’t your grandmother’s house anymore by any means.

Really, one could say that this bright happy new utility room, could be your home’s command central, and everyone’s getting in on the action. Interior designers across the country agree. They say that the utility room is evolving into the home’s command central or organizational center where homeowners manage the many activities that make up daily living. What does that mean exactly today? It means you can have organization everywhere and be able to really keep it clean with minimal effort. Take a look on the left here. How easy is this to keep everything in its place and clean, and it’s so beautiful.

Let’s explore the possibilities for a moment

• It can be a center for storing the kids’ schoolwork
• It can also be outdoor clothing in lockers or cubbies, or running utilities like heating and lighting via a computer or keypad.
• it can serve as a mending room or the family’s communication center with a message board or intercom system.
• More typically, it’s a place for cleaning, laundry or gardening—and as such, it must be accessible to homeowners of all ages and inclinations.

Today’s new and improved utility room is often located adjacent to a first-floor entryway that leads directly outdoor to the yard, pool area, outside kitchen or entertainment center, or beach shower area.

People are thinking outside the box and instead realizing that this area needs to be defined in terms of family’s age and lifestyle. An example might be if the homeowner is a gardener who really enjoys being outside, a place for preparing plants may be incorporated into a counter surface or sink. If your kids are coming in from playing outside and are muddy, you don’t want them running through the house. You’ll want a utility sink or an adjacent small bathroom right there, and it’s something simple and easy to use that won’t make a big mess.

In general, for these households, the gardening sink is a big idea. The KOHLER cast-iron Harborview™ utility sink, for example, is shallow and wide enough for working with gardening pots and dirty shoes, and its optional wood grate extends the countertop to create a roomy workspace.

Sunken pleasure may be your style to adopt, it’s for people working with heavy or bulky items, Kohler also offers its Oceanview in-floor sink. The sink’s shallow-basin depth and removable wood grates are ideal for rinsing off sandy feet, mud- or snow-covered boots or a heavy bucket of garden vegetables.

Looking at this sink, it’s possible in one location to water plants, wash the dog at the dog’s level, fill cleaning buckets without lifting, and do dry cleaning of your rags and mops and also can hang clothes overhead to air dry if you are so inclined. Awesome Right!

In fact, air drying is a growing trend in laundry features, these areas are starting to resembling side-by-side refrigerators, these units use natural or motor-generated air to dry clothes. Air drying units provide a green energy alternative and are practical for drying woolens and sweaters. Many of these units have hanging rods and adjustable wire shelves to facilitate clothes placement and wrinkle-free drying. Simple and easy, they are often very beautiful as well.

Today’s utility room multitasks and gets more beautiful all the time. The use of natural lighting, tile, customized cabinetry and beautiful sink colors like the array offered for both the Harborview and Oceanview sinks can help homeowners almost forget that they’re actually doing chores in this space.

Despite technological advances, people still want rooms that are aesthetically pleasing and pleasant to look at. Most designers and architects agree that they don’t want the laundry room to look like a science lab.

It needs to be about having a beautiful, personalized décor to help incorporate a utility room into the overall design of the house. The premise being sheer convenience is really all that matters. What a concept right. It’s why designers are seeing mini utility rooms pop up throughout the home even in private areas such as the master suite.

Mini utility rooms with compact-sized or stacking washers and dryers are definitely popular in upstairs locations just so you don’t have to take clothes all over the house. Many laundries are in the lowest level of the house so this feature [near the master bedroom] is a time-saver, not to mention a back-and-arm saver from having to carry laundry up and down steps. Form and function. And for those homes where the master suite may have an adjacent all-in-one gym or a spa, a nearby mini utility room makes cleaning or even warming up towels a snap.

If you are interested in making some changes to your utility room, or maybe want to add a shower or shower wand in a convenient location, let’s talk. Here at Action, we can help you with the plumbing, the fixtures, the electrical and the design. All you need to do is decide what you want.

Call us today, Action Plumbing, Heating, Air Conditioning and Electric, Inc. has a solution you’ve been waiting to see just for the asking. Give us a call right now at (608) 837-3638.

Together we can help you create the Utility Room Dream Come True.

If you need some Action now, you can click here to schedule service online now!