No the laundry room doesn't need to be next to the garage. How often have you ever carried a bunch of laundry in from the garage to wash it? Or carried a bunch of clean laundry out to the garage to put it away? LOL. The only reason laundry rooms in many on-line plans are next to the garage is that many designers still think in terms of women tending to the laundry WHILE they slave away in the kitchen all day and there IS a good reason to have the kitchen near the garage(carrying bags of groceries in from the car) so the laundry winds up there too. It was probably sensible to have the laundry near the kitchen back in the days when very few women worked outside of their homes, and most spent hours and hours in their kitchen every single cooking meals, baking fresh bread, and canning produce from their gardens. Plus, in the early days of washing machines, one had to pretty much 'babysit' the washing machine because they tended to get out of balance easily and you had to start the machines and then come back and laundry powder and bleach after the tub filled and then come back again to add fabric softeners at the start of the rinse cycle, etc. Nowadays tho, the biggest chore related to washing clothing is getting the laundry TO the machine and then getting the clean clothes back into closets. And no woman I know spends hours and hours in her kitchen everyday any more. So IMHO, it makes much more sense to have the washer/dryer close to the bedrooms/bathrooms because that is where 90% of laundry originates and that is where 90% of clean laundry is stored. However, with your design it appears that the master closet is only accessible by going thru the master bedroom. Not sure what revisions you're planning to make but will they result in the laundry room being accessible without having to go thru the master bedroom??? Your children may be too small to do their own laundry now but, when they get older, I'm sure you're going to want them to learn to be responsible for caring for their own clothing. To do so, they are going to need to be able to get to the washer/dryer without having to go thru your bedroom. Besides which, I don't think a 4 bedroom (4 SUITE) house where the laundry can only be accessed via the master suite would be very easy to sell if/when you ever decide to put this house on the market. Personally, I'd revise the upstairs area to put the main laundry room up there. If you were to close up the two-story great room OR the two-story entry, you would have plenty of room for a second floor laundry. Then I might consider adding a stacking washer/dryer in the master closet so I could do mine and DH's dirty laundry without lugging it up/down stairs. ***** Finally, I know you didn't ask for comments on your elevation, but before you settle firmly on the plan you posted, you might want to take a look at the attached link (which was first found and posted here on GW by CamG.) It summarizes some of the principles of good exterior design. At least take a look at pages 22 thru 37. I know everyone's tastes are different, but honestly, in my opinion the exterior elevation of the house you've chosen could serve as a poster child for many of the design faux pas perpetuated by spec-builders pushing mini-McMansions. Shutters that don't fit the windows they are attached to, an excessive number of gables resulting in a needlessly complex roof-line, far too many decorative design elements thrown together (faux archtop windows bay windows, a round window, double hung windows; quoins, arched keystone pediments, a splayed copper roof over the bay window, decorative attic vents...including one on a garage gable that leads to a section of garage attic that isn't even accessible, full cornice return on one gable, terminating cornice returns on the other), and all of that topped off with a double height entry because otherwise one wouldn't be able to find the front door. Somehow it reminds me of the sorts of bridesmaid's dresses sometimes selected by very young brides.... too many frills and furbelows and no sense of classic style, proportion or grace. Here is a link that might be useful: The Value of Design

Try asking on the remodel forum. If it can be done, I think you'd have to have a double block wall to make the opening to roll the door into. Another option would be to just hang "barn door" style doors, where the hardware that hangs the door is mounted above the opening, and the door slides open along a wall.

shalena- A pocket door can only be installed before the wall is up. It is not possible to do some kind of retrofit, particularly in a concrete block wall. You would have to demolish your existing wall, install the hardware and door, and then construct a double wall on either side of it. The only realistic option I can suggest is to install a style of door called a "sliding barn door" where the hardware is mounted on the outside of the wall, and the door hangs from this track and can be rolled sideways.

What are the dimensions of the proposed laundry room? Are you consulting professional designers? (I ask because of your question about doing an island in the master closet which is clearly not wide enough to accommodate an island. At least 11 feet in width is the rule of thumb for doing a small island in a kitchen. Hanging space requires almost as much room as base cabinets require. I.e., 24" is the minimum closet depth vs. base cabinets that are 24" deep + 1.5-2.0" countertop overhang.) How much free space will you have in front of the washer & dryer? 48" is the usually recommended amount of space that is needed to comfortably work in the space. How wide is the door opening? Wide enough to easily get through with loaded baskets of laundry? To move the machines into the rooms. Is there enough space for almost inevitable repairs to be made? I'll echo what others have said; the master closet is large. IMO, a house that has a 'Master Closet' the size of a small bedroom should have more than a cubbyhole for a laundry. Better to have as much info as you can get ahead of a project rather than have regrets after it is done.