
A laundry room or utility room is a
room
In a building or a ship, a room is any enclosed space within a number of walls to which entry is possible only via a door or other dividing structure. The entrance connects it to either a passageway, another room, or the outdoors. The space is ...
where
clothes
Clothing (also known as clothes, garments, dress, apparel, or attire) is any item worn on a human human body, body. Typically, clothing is made of fabrics or textiles, but over time it has included garments made from animal skin and other thin s ...
are washed, and sometimes also
dried. In a modern
home
A home, or domicile, is a space used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for one or more human occupants, and sometimes various companion animals. Homes provide sheltered spaces, for instance rooms, where domestic activity can be p ...
, laundry rooms are often equipped with an automatic
washing machine
A washing machine (laundry machine, clothes washer, washer, or simply wash) is a machine designed to laundry, launder clothing. The term is mostly applied to machines that use water. Other ways of doing laundry include dry cleaning (which uses ...
and
clothes dryer
A clothes dryer (tumble dryer, drying machine, drying device, or simply dryer) is a powered Home appliance, household appliance that is used to remove moisture from a load of clothing, bedding and other textiles, usually after they are washed in ...
, and often a large basin, called a ''laundry tub'', for hand-washing of delicate clothing articles such as
sweater
A sweater (North American English) or pullover, also called a jersey or jumper (British English, Hiberno-English and Australian English), s, as well as an
ironing board. Laundry rooms may also include storage cabinets, countertops for folding clothes, and, space permitting, a small
sewing machine
Diagram of a modern sewing machine
Animation of a modern sewing machine as it stitches
A sewing machine is a machine used to sew fabric and materials together with thread. Sewing machines were invented during the first Industrial Revolutio ...
.
The term ''utility room'' is more commonly used in
British English
British English is the set of Variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United Kingdom, especially Great Britain. More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England, or, more broadly, to ...
, while
Australian English
Australian English (AusE, AusEng, AuE, AuEng, en-AU) is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to Australia. It is the country's common language and ''de facto'' national language. While Australia has no of ...
and
North American English
North American English (NAmE) encompasses the English language as spoken in both the United States and Canada. Because of their related histories and cultures, plus the similarities between the pronunciations (accents), vocabulary, and grammar ...
generally refer to this room as a ''laundry'', except in the
American Southeast
The Southeastern United States, also known as the American Southeast or simply the Southeast, is a geographical region of the United States located in the eastern portion of the Southern United States and the southern portion of the Eastern Uni ...
. "Utility" refers to an item which is designed for usefulness or practical use, so in turn most of the items kept in this room have functional attributes, i.e. "
form follows function
Form follows function is a principle of design associated with late 19th- and early 20th-century architecture and industrial design in general, which states that the appearance and structure of a building or object ( architectural form) should p ...
".
History
The utility room was a modern spin off to the
scullery room where important kitchen items were kept during its usage in
England
England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
, the term was further defined around the 14th century as a household department where kitchen items are taken care of. The term utility room was mentioned in 1760, when a cottage was built in a rural location in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
that was accessible through
Penarth
Penarth ( , ) is a town and Community (Wales), community in the Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, approximately south of Cardiff city centre on the west shore of the Severn Estuary at the southern end of Cardiff Bay.
Penarth is a Seaside resort#Brit ...
and
Cardiff
Cardiff (; ) is the capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of Wales. Cardiff had a population of in and forms a Principal areas of Wales, principal area officially known as the City and County of Ca ...
. A utility room for general purposes also depicted its use as a guest room in case of an immediate need. A 1944 Scottish housing and planning report recommended new state-built homes for families could provide a utility room as a general purpose workroom for the home (for washing clothes, cleaning boots and jobbing repairs). An American publication called the ''Pittsburgh Post-Gazette'' reported on July 24, 1949 that utility rooms had become more popular than basements in new constructions. On June 28, 1959, in a report of a typical American house being built in
Moscow, Russia
Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...
, the house was described to have a utility room immediately at the right side after the entrance. The ''
Chicago Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is an American daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1847, it was formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper", a slogan from which its once integrated WGN (AM), WGN radio and ...
'' reported that the laundry room was then commonly being referred to as the utility room in a publication on September 30, 1970.
Uses
The utility room has several uses but typically functions as an area to do
laundry
Laundry is the washing of clothing and other textiles, and, more broadly, their drying and ironing as well. Laundry has been part of history since humans began to wear clothes, so the methods by which different cultures have dealt with this u ...
. This room contains laundry equipment such as a
washing machine
A washing machine (laundry machine, clothes washer, washer, or simply wash) is a machine designed to laundry, launder clothing. The term is mostly applied to machines that use water. Other ways of doing laundry include dry cleaning (which uses ...
,
tumble dryer,
ironing boards and
clothes iron
A clothes iron (also flatiron, smoothing iron, dry iron, steam iron or simply iron) is a small appliance that, when heated, is used to press Clothing, clothes to remove Wrinkle, wrinkles and unwanted creases. Domestic irons generally range in o ...
. The room is also used for closet organization and storage. The room would normally contain a second coat closet which is used to store seasonal clothing such as winter coats or clothing which are no longer used daily. Storage spaces would contain other appliances which would generally be in the
kitchen
A kitchen is a room (architecture), room or part of a room used for cooking and food preparation in a dwelling or in a commercial establishment. A modern middle-class residential kitchen is typically equipped with a Kitchen stove, stove, a sink ...
if it was in usage daily. Furnaces and the
water heater are sometime incorporated to the room as well. Shelving and trash may sometimes be seen at this area as not to congest the other parts of the house.
Location
In older homes, the laundry is typically located in the
basement
A basement is any Storey, floor of a building that is not above the grade plane. Especially in residential buildings, it often is used as a utility space for a building, where such items as the Furnace (house heating), furnace, water heating, ...
, but in many modern homes, the laundry room might be found on the main floor near the
kitchen
A kitchen is a room (architecture), room or part of a room used for cooking and food preparation in a dwelling or in a commercial establishment. A modern middle-class residential kitchen is typically equipped with a Kitchen stove, stove, a sink ...
or, less often, upstairs near the
bedroom
A bedroom or bedchamber is a room situated within a residential or accommodation unit characterized by its usage for sleeping. A typical Western world, western bedroom contains as bedroom furniture one or two beds, a clothes closet, and bedsid ...
s.
Another typical location is adjacent to the
garage and the laundry room serves as a
mudroom for the entrance from the garage. As the garage is often at a different elevation (or grade) from the rest of the house, the laundry room serves as an entrance from the garage that may be sunken from the rest of the house. This prevents or reduces the need for stairs between the garage and the house.
Most houses in the United Kingdom do not have laundry rooms; as such, the washing machine and dryer (if possessed) are usually located in the kitchen or garage.
In Hungary, some older apartment buildings and most workers' hostels have communal laundry rooms, called (lit. "washing kitchen") in Hungarian. In the former, when residents started to all own individual washing machines in their apartments, obsoleted laundry rooms were sometimes converted into small apartments, shops or workshops (e.g. a
shoemaker
Shoemaking is the process of making footwear.
Originally, shoes were made one at a time by hand, often by groups of shoemakers, or '' cordwainers'' (sometimes misidentified as cobblers, who repair shoes rather than make them). In the 18th cen ...
's) or used simply for storage.
In
Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...
, laundry rooms, called a "
tvättstuga", are found in almost all older apartment buildings. Swedish laundry rooms are often located in the basements of the buildings, but can also be found in detached buildings. In the 1980s, analogue booking boards with locking cylinders were introduced to regulate washing times and create a booking system. Some of these have been replaced in the 2000s by electronic counterparts with electronic keys or tokens.
See also
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Drying room
*
Furnace room
A furnace (American English), referred to as a heater or boiler in British English, is an appliance used to generate heat for all or part of a building. Furnaces are mostly used as a major component of a Central heating, central heating system. ...
*
Lavoir, a public place for the washing of clothes
*
Mechanical room
*
Root cellar
A root cellar (American and Canadian English), fruit cellar (Mid-Western American English) or earth cellar (British English) is a structure, usually underground. or partially underground, used for food storage, storage of vegetables, fruits, nu ...
*
Scullery, a room used for washing up dishes and laundering clothes, or as an overflow kitchen
*
Storage room
*
Technical room
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Laundry Room
Rooms
room
In a building or a ship, a room is any enclosed space within a number of walls to which entry is possible only via a door or other dividing structure. The entrance connects it to either a passageway, another room, or the outdoors. The space is ...