Bootroom vs study? The latest trend in home upgrades

For us at Blakes, the first lockdown opened somewhat of a floodgate of enquiries from clients looking to upgrade their existing homes. 

As people spent more time within their own four walls, their thoughts naturally focused on how they could improve the spaces that they already had. 

Interestingly enough, for us joinery geeks that is, it wasn’t just the big-ticket items like kitchens and bathrooms that people were thinking about. The question was how space could be used more creatively and for better purpose. 

As we return to working from home for this second lock down, I appreciate this post may be somewhat controversial, but for anyone that knows me well, it will come as no surprise that I’m swimming against the tide. 

The cornerstone of all of our design work is to ask clients how they use a space. While storage is often high on the agenda, it can often get overlooked for other somewhat sexier check-box items that people think they need and want. Home offices being a prime example. 

I will no doubt offend some in saying so, but studies, the archetypal man cave, are seldom used to the extent that one imagines they would be. I regularly visit clients at home and see studies used as glorified filing cabinets, or even let’s face it, a ‘dumping ground’ with a door! Let’s face it not many of our studies really look like our project below.

10-15 years ago, when laptops were the preserve of a few and the desktop/landline/dial-up connection ruled the roost, this may well have made sense. However, with Wi-Fi, tablets and smartphones, any flat surface or even lap, becomes a viable option from which to work. I can’t think of the last time we didn’t build USB ports into kitchen islands for people to work from. And quite frankly, a home-office come stack-away-cupboard is an increasingly popular addition to many of our kitchen designs. Homes increasingly have fewer pre-designated spaces and lean toward open-plan and multi-purpose alternatives. Let’s face it, dining rooms are done, and boudoir bathrooms are here to stay. 

I appreciate that in a Covid world where so many are now working from home full time, this view may swim against the tide. Good design, however, is about designing something that stands the test of time and isn’t just a reaction to a short-term shift in focus. 

With that in mind, all hail the latest addition to the home. The boot room. Or as our friends across the pond would say, the mudroom. Alongside the laundry room, probably the least sexy yet most coveted room in the home, (all be it secretly!)

Award winning architecture practice Kaap Studio Architects share our sentiments on the humble boot room having recently submitted plans to re-purpose a clients existing ground floor study into a boot room. For their busy client-two working parents, a study was a nice to have rather than a must have. A proper space to tidy away all the shoes, coats, sports and school equipment associated with a young family and a dog was deemed to be used far more often and to better effect than a study. Afterall no one wants to trip over shoes and coats every time they open the front door!

Where space is limited a standalone room may not be an option. At our Toast Rack project, shown below, we ‘stole’ a section of space from the kitchen and created an opening that was accessible only from the hallway. This new nook was re-purposed into a well utilised and elegant walk in closet.

In our Wandsworth project a fake wall was built in the kitchen extension, behind which a utility room come boot room was created. Talking up about 1/3rd of the large new space to create a boot room allowed the rest of the home to remain clutter free which added to the light open and airy feel of the space. 

All this is not to say that a home can’t benefit from a study space. It may well be that by thinking outside of the box, you could just end up putting your study in a kitchen stack away unit like we did at our Preston Road project.  

So, whatever your spatial complications, I lay down a challenge, see if you too can repurpose a space to create your own boot room. I don’t imagine you will look back. 

All the very best, Jamie and the team at Blakes London.  

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