The Utility Room

The room that was to become our utility room had previously functioned merely as a dumping ground. Littered with rusty bikes, a barbecue, a paddling pool, a tent, endless amounts of planks of wood and anything else bulky and unsightly that you can think of, it would be an understatement to say that the room itself wasn’t much to look at.

At the other end of the room that leads to the downstairs bathroom, there was an old sink unit and that was about all that we had to begin with. As we sifted through the piles of rubbish and took them to the local tip, we encountered several oversized spiders and also discovered an equally unwelcome ant’s nest that had been flourishing underneath the clutter. In the process of trying to spray the nest, I found the ants to be crawling up my arms biting as they went and I wondered once again what we had gotten ourselves into buying the house.

BEFORE:

Soon enough though the bug drama was over and after Darren’s dad ripped the sink out for us, we were finally able to clean the room properly. After spending the best part of a week gutting it together, we eventually agreed that we’d got the room clean enough and so we got started on painting it. We initially decided on brilliant white to exaggerate the cleanliness that we’d worked so hard to achieve! Soon though, we opted for the back wall to be painted grey as a feature. Next, we choose black tile-effect vinyl flooring and bought a range of accessories including photo frames and a runner carpet that read ‘It Takes Hands To Build A House But Only Hearts Can Build A Home’. The quote felt completely apt to us both at the time as yet another room that had felt lifeless beforehand was finally starting to look homely.

In time, we chose a washing machine and a tumble dryer (and got ridiculously excited about both!). Then Darren built a storage unit to replace the sink, a chest of drawers and he fitted a grey worktop. When it was all put together, the room looked perfectly finished. With its simplistic design and colour scheme, it looked clean too which pleased us both no end. Better still, our utility room has turned out to be the ideal place for us to do our washing, drying and ironing! Oh, and not forgetting that it is also a home for our rabbit Keefa whose pen fits very neatly under the window.

AFTER: