Dishwasher in Utility Room?

amother

Coral

Tue, Jan 15 2019, 6:56 am

We just looked at a house and the dishwasher is in the utility room that leads off the kitchen. The current owners seem to manage fine that way, but they're an elderly couple living on their own which probably means they don't have all that much dishes. With the current layout, there's really no space for it in the kitchen.

Will I totally regret having it there? The dishwasher doesn't come with the house so we'll have to buy another one, in that case, is it better just to forgo a dishwasher altogether?

amother

Floralwhite

Tue, Jan 15 2019, 7:12 am

It's a bit hard to know w/o seeing the layout, but if you could imagine that the kitchen Is bigger and includes the utility room, I can't see a problem. Certainly better than having no dishwasher- imo.

ra_mom

Tue, Jan 15 2019, 9:12 am

What is the utility room like? Is it a walk in pantry for the kitchen? A place that can be made into a pesach cooking area? Ability to open up and extend the kitchen into that space?

amother

Coral

Tue, Jan 15 2019, 9:22 am

ra_mom wrote:

What is the utility room like? Is it a walk in pantry for the kitchen? A place that can be made into a pesach cooking area? Ability to open up and extend the kitchen into that space?

Kitchen is long and narrow with an eating area between the work tops and utility room door.
Utility room has the fridge, freezer, washing machine and dryer as well as some cabinets, worktop and sink.

ra_mom

Tue, Jan 15 2019, 9:25 am

amother wrote:

Kitchen is long and narrow with an eating area between the work tops and utility room door.
Utility room has the fridge, freezer, washing machine and dryer as well as some cabinets, worktop and sink.

Is it possible to open things up so that the eat in area is now where the utility room is and the appliances are in the kitchen?

If you're going there for the fridge and freezer already it may not be so bad to go there for the dishwasher too. When clearing the table, everything will end up in that room (and your main kitchen will look cleaner ; ) ).

Amarante

Tue, Jan 15 2019, 10:34 am

I don't think the issue is that the dishwasher is in the utility room as it seems that most of the kitchen is in a separate area as the sink, refrigerator are there as well. I am not sure what is at the other end.

I would not have a dishwasher that was not next to the sink because they function together. However it appears that the sink and dishwasher are together.

I would probably not want a kitchen configured in this manner at all as the layout would drive me crazy so unless there was some overwhelming need to purchase it, I would look for another house. If the price reflected the terrible layout, then theoretically I could use the savings to remodel the kitchen so it was more functional.

There is no way an elderly couple uses a kitchen in the same way that a family would.

emzod42

Tue, Jan 15 2019, 10:44 am

I'd try to picture myself loading and unloading the dishwasher and think about the possible pitfalls of having it there. Is there a sink in the utility room? Are there cabinets to store dishes in there? If you needed to scrape plates, would you have a separate trash in there? Would you be able to rinse dishes before putting them in? After washing, could you put them away easily or would you have to cart them through the dining room every time you unloaded to put away? Is it just one dishwasher? If so, you could keep just your fleish dishes in there, but if you ever wanted to take something from the fridge and put on a plate, you wouldn't have it. Now I'm leaning towards no...

Amarante

Tue, Jan 15 2019, 12:03 pm

One can make almost any dysfunctional layout work but the issue is whether one wants to KNOWINGLY purchase a house with this configuration.

It's obviously dysfunctional but of course people learn to live with kitchens that are just as dysfunctional.

The issue is what other choices are available - why is this specific home being seriously considered etc.

For most of us, a kitchen is one of the most important rooms in the home so layout is very important. Of course, we don't live in an ideal world, so compromise is sometimes necessary.

But I can only iterate, WHY is OP thinking of compromising in relation to this specific house.

amother

Coral

Tue, Jan 15 2019, 12:42 pm

Amarante wrote:

OP here. You're right that the kitchen is an important part of the home but everything else about the house works for us, so it's not enough reason to let it go. We may have potential to change things at a later date, but for now we hope to buy this home anyway while making it as workable as possible within the confines of the current space.

In other words, we're limited by budget and this is the best we've found and we're otherwise happy with it.

SixOfWands

Tue, Jan 15 2019, 12:55 pm

amother wrote:

It sounds workable to me. You have a sink and cabinets in the utility room, along with the dishwasher. Use those cabinets for your most-used dishes, and use the sink for cleaning up.

amother

Coral

Tue, Jan 15 2019, 1:21 pm

SixOfWands wrote:

It sounds workable to me. You have a sink and cabinets in the utility room, along with the dishwasher. Use those cabinets for your most-used dishes, and use the sink for cleaning up.

I don't really want the utility room sink to become meaty/milky but you're right that it's definitely an option.

amother

Jade

Tue, Jan 15 2019, 1:30 pm

We have a dishwasher in our kitchen but I wanted another so I'd be able to have one for dairy and one for meat. It's in the basement. If our only dishwasher was in the basement I still would have bought the house.
BUT
you said your sink is in a separate room. Do you not have a sink in your kitchen? That's the thing I would have issue with.
If you're just asking how annoying it is do have the dishwasher in a different room my answer is it really isn't a big deal at all.

Amarante

Tue, Jan 15 2019, 1:31 pm

Every home is going to be a compromise of one kind or another unless one has truly unlimited resources.

At least going in, you know what the issues are and I presume that the purchase price will reflect the fair market value of a house with a non-functional layout versus one with an ideal layout :-).