Laundry or Utility Room

[DSJ]

Does anybody know when and from where the Utility Room came into being? It is not something that I heard of when I was a child.

In Australia, we had a laundry in our homes. In America the utility room is also called the laundry or the laundry room.

These two countries were originally mostly populated by people from Britain or Ireland so does this name have its roots in GB?

Just curious!

[Prudie]

When I was a child only my grandparents had these kind of rooms attached to the kitchen and both sets referred to it as the scullery.

[Mamyalynne]

We had a 'wash house' attached to the back of the kitchen, where originally the copper boiler and mangle were kept - that evolved and eventually the twin tub went in there.

[tonyav]

Think it was a word bought in by estate agents and builders around the mid to late 80's, we bought a brand new house early 1990 and utility room was used in the house description, don't think I had heard of it before.

[Kiki-frog]

I didn't know anyone with a separate room for washing clothes when I was a child. Maybe houses weren't built with them then as few people had washing machines, let alone tumble dryers

[MarkRae]

We also had a wash-house with the washing machine and later the dryer. There was also a big sink where we had to clean off our wellies if we'd been oot in the clarts, like. I think if you'd asked my Mum what 'laundry' was she'd have said that it's the thing that takes up her entire Monday - I doubt she'd have understood that word to refer to a specific room. As for the launderette, well that was the steamies... :-)

[Baldric]

According to the OCD Laundry comes from C16 old French
and Utility has it's origins in Latin utilis meaning useful.

[DSJ]

That's interesting.

[pusskin]

Prudie, the name scullery brings back lots of happy memories to me.
Mum busy in her scullery cooking for all us kids x Ah bless

[abstibus]

I call mine the 'Futility room'.