Removing utility sink

[woowoo]

To add to the inconvenient timing of COVID, our dryer kicked the bucket this week.  We're going to go ahead and buy a new W/D set against better judgement (my husband is furloughed) and once we can afford it, we'll be doing a minor renovation to our laundry room. 

It's SMALL.  Basically one wall with cabinets, a utility sink, and then stacked washer dryer.  It's also the entrance from the garage but there is no place to put shoes, or anything. 

I'm considering taking out the utility sink and putting in it's place a small mudroom style open cabinet - kind of like this:

www.wayfair.com/furniture/pdp/gracie-oaks-angelica-hall-tree-with-bench-and-shoe-storage-w000250899.html

We honestly don't really use the utility sink at all, but I'm wondering if this is a resale thing.  Will people be annoyed there is no utility sink? 

We live in a ranch house, in Florida.  I say that because the kitchen sink is like 15 steps from the utility sink.  But we also don't really wear jackets, so I'm not sure how useful the hooks and stuff will really be.

Opinions? 

[mrsukyankee]

I've never lived anywhere with a utility sink, including in the US, so I wouldn't care as I wouldn't use one most likely, even if I did have one. I'd much rather have a place to put shoes and jackets (or dog stuff - which is also great for hanging).

[nicolewi]

I guess this is totally personal preference, but I have never NOT had a utility sink and can't imagine not having one. We use ours all the time. It's just off our garage door/mudroom, where the laundry is.

Here are things I do with it:
I spray out/treat stains in the sink, especially baby blowout diapers when the kids were smaller, and vomit issues!
I use it to wash off muddy shoes or other really dirty stuff that I don't want in the kitchen sink.
I also fill cleaning buckets in it so that if I spill bleach or similar it's just in the sink, and dump the dirty cleaning water into the sink.
I wash out the measuring cup there after I measure bleach for the washer clean cycle.
I wash my hands there when I come in from gardening/yard work.
I have kids sit on the counter and wash their super dirty feet off if needed.

[Susie]

The house I grew up in was a 3 bed / 2.5 bath colonial, built in 1985, and it had a laundry room between the garage and kitchen, but no utility sink anywhere.  It sounds like that's similar to what you would have, and that did not seem unusual to me (and still does not, my dad still lives there).

My current house was built around the same time.  We have laundry in the basement, with a utility sink next to the washer.  It's handy to have a sink on that level, and we do use it (mostly to soak baby and kid clothes in oxy after staining and before the next laundry load) but I could do that somewhere else if we didn't have it.  I think if laundry weren't on a separate floor it would be even less necessary.

[dr.girlfriend]

Not to be a wet blanket, but since your husband is furloughed would you consider seeing if there's a dryer on Craigslist for cheap or free? A lot of people get rid of perfectly good ones when they want a matching set or move someplace that has a set already. That said, when we moved our laundry up from the basement we did not include a utility sink in the new laundry room and we haven't missed it. We had planned to get a new matching set with our new laundry room, and then in the end just moved our old set up and I'm kind of glad now that we didn't spend the extra money because no one sees that room anyway.

[aprilsails]

My initial reaction was they was a bad idea, however I don’t think I would mind if I lived in Florida. We mostly use the utility sink for cleaning the cat litter boxes, the compost bin, shoes and rinsing our buckets during the winter. During the summer, we do all of that with the hose outside.

Go for it.

[nicolewi]

If you remove the sink, I wouldn't do it for a piece like you linked, especially if you don't know if you would even use the hooks! Seems like a huge waste! What about then some kind of closed storage cabinet or something? Unless you just want the bench. We have some of those little shoe cubbies and they really don't hold much at all. Although, again, in Florida maybe it would be fine. You wouldn't have a lot of bigger boots & shoes.

[woowoo]

dr.girlfriend, that's a good suggestion, but we got burned bad doing that awhile back. We bought one off marketplace and it died a week later.
We are fine financially, and the deals out there are crazy (we got an awesome deal from Best Buy, and they are doing 24 months interest free for card holders if we needed to go that route).

nicolewi, this is good point. We don't need the bench, so a storage cabinet probably does make more sense. At least shoes would be more out of site.

[aspentosh]

We lived without a utility sink for 8 years in our TH but have one in our current home. I use it a good amount but could live without one if I had to.

I would, however, advise against the cubbies like that on the bottom. It's so limiting. Drawers or a big cubby with basket is a much more fluid thing and can be used for all kinds of stuff vs just smaller shoes.

We hang all kinds of stuff on our hooks- book bags, briefcase, umbrellas, purses, etc.

[lolalolalola]

We have had utility sink in the last two homes we owned and I used them a lot. We don't have a spot for one in our current home and there are lots of times I wished I had it, but I've made do just fine. It was obviously not a breaking point for us to buy this house.

[lolalolalola]

Apr 30, 2020 10:28:10 GMT -5 aspentosh said:

I would, however, advise against the cubbies like that on the bottom. It's so limiting. Drawers or a big cubby with basket is a much more fluid thing and can be used for all kinds of stuff vs just smaller shoes.

Agree 100% with this statement!

[af1212]

I grew up with the laundry in my kitchen. I then moved to several rentals with laundry in the basement and no utility sink. I have since married and lived in two houses with laundry in the basement and a utility sink right next to the washer. I have never once used the sink in either house. I have three kids, cloth diapered all of them, they play baseball and get muddy, etc.

So personally I would not miss the sink gone. I would LOVE some kind of mudroom/crap storage and agree with those who said to go with cabinets or drawers instead of a hall tree.

[icedcoffee]

I think it's fine to take it out if you don't use it, but I'd try to still leave the hookup in tact. That way a future home buyer could just buy a new sink for $100 and install it if they wanted.

[kadams767]

May 4, 2020 8:21:21 GMT -5 icedcoffee said:

I think it's fine to take it out if you don't use it, but I'd try to still leave the hookup in tact. That way a future home buyer could just buy a new sink for $100 and install it if they wanted.

I agree with this.  I personally would go nuts without one, but I am used to having it and am also always doing messy projects around the house.  I use it constantly for garden and yard related stuff, washing paint brushes/rollers/buckets, emptying the shop vac, and I even had to throw my dog in there once when she was too dirty to be brought up to the regular bathtub.  YMMV, though.  

[penguingrrl]

I’ve never had a utility sink, so I don’t know what I’m missing. I wouldn’t know what to use it for if I did have one. So I would say take it out, I need a decent sized washer and dryer, that would be high priority for me.