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The Utility Room: It's Not Just for Storage Anymore
By Jessica Stockton
A utility room is intended to be functional and utilitarian, but you can make it more useful and stylish with a few creative ideas that will take from dungeon decor to something more in keeping with the rest of the home.
Capture the Space & Create a Theme
You can't make the utility room fun and whimsical until it's free of junk and clutter. Clear the utility room of clutter and overflow from the garage. If the utility room has a closet, reorganize it, getting rid of the unused and unusable. Install shelves, closet rods and shoe organizers to keep the room neat and tidy from this day forward. Coats, shoes, outerwear, cleaning and paper supplies can be stored in the utility room as long as they're organized and out of view.
If you don't have closet, arrange supplies under an open sink or in a corner and hang a cheery curtain to disguise them and point you toward a decorative theme. Maybe you're drawn to sunflowers, or cats or clowns. The utility room is the perfect spot for a theme that may be a little over the top anywhere else in the house.
Display Collectibles
Open shelves or an open corner cabinet is a great place for housing a collection that might be packed away or threatening to overtake another area of the home. For example, an avid gardener could display glass, porcelain and metal vases and pitchers for arranging flowers. A runner might have a collection of trophies and ribbons. Anything from salt and pepper shakers to vintage toys, sewing thimbles or a ceramic collection of roosters can inspire the theme of the entire room. Collections displayed en masse have greater visual impact that pieces that are displayed hither and yon. Assemble your collection, look at the colors and the theme that is emerging and then let it inspire everything from wall color to window coverings.
A Butler's Pantry
If your utility room is adjacent to the kitchen, take the space from institutional to chic. Remove the door between the utility room and the kitchen; remove hinges from the frame and fill, sand and paint holes and notches from hardware. If a utility item, such as a water heater, is in view, build a wall around it and add a louvered door. The space above the water heater can be outfitted with shelves for storing supplies that you wish to keep out of sight.
Paint the utility room in a hue that is several shades deeper than the kitchen. For example, if your kitchen walls are a light shade of green, try sage green on the utility room walls. Add open wooden shelving with wrought iron or wooden supports and use the area as a Butler's Pantry, providing a boon of extra storage space for the kitchen as well as a staging area for parties and entertaining. Display serving trays vertically on open shelves and stack platters, dishes, cups and saucers, and glassware in front. Awkward pieces like tall pitchers and ice buckets can be part of the decor, and you'll have space to display kitchen gadgets that you don't use everyday. If the utility room has plumbing, build a wet bar with space above for glasses and bottles and a beverage refrigerator below. Your utility room is still practical, but now it is chic and fashionable as well and you have expanded the size and value of your kitchen for the cost of some paint, wall shelves and a small appliance. Photo from Flickr - "Utility Room/pantry" courtesy of cheryl.dudley.
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