So there is access to the PR from the Laundry area? If that is the case, I would definitely close off the pocket door to the kitchen.

Nancy

Can you post the current layout? I assume there's a U shaped hallway behind kitchen? Please show where the garage entrance is located as well.

Ok, this is a drawing I did when I was thinking of kitchen ideas for the remodel. But the laundry area is the way it looks now. The part marked "Pantry?" is actually where the desk is now and where I am thinking about recessing a fridge into the wall.

And this is a picture of the current kitchen. You can see the desk area in the kitchen. The door to the left in the picture is the bathroom. The door to the right leads into the laundry area and then another door goes straight into the garage.

Hi, Khallock!

What do you want to accomplish? or What all do you want the space to do for you?
What do you like or dislike about the space now?

Hi rhome!

I'd like to get a functional mud room. Someplace where we can sit down to take off shoes, etc...store some jackets on hooks, keep backpacks, etc...Right now the room is a mess and I hate that I have to lug all my laundry to the first floor and people can see it from the kitchen when that door is open.

But I also need some storage space for cleaning supplies, toilet paper, paper towels, etc...

I'm thinking it might be possible if we moved the laundry to the 2nd floor (where all of our bedrooms are). We dont use the room off of the master bedroom right now (it has slanted ceilings and not much usable space). Would you move the laundry to open up that area for a better mud room?

DH and I also hate the tile in that room and the bathroom so we would also retile the floor with slate tile (I think).

I am envisioning something like this

I have a very similar room and had someone build me lockers similar to the ones above. I love that the kids come home from school and have somewhere to hang their coats and bags up. We also have large drawers below each locker that I use to store mitts, hats and another one has a pile of the kids' shoes.

The big negative with my set up is our shoes and boots. In your picture, they're all neatly placed in that tray. Well, that rarely happens in my house. I have a carpet runner in front of the lockers where they line up their shoes. The crummy part is that our drawers are almost impossible to open with the shoes and boots in front of them. I have seen people line them up in the bottom of the locker but I don't want dirt and mud in the lockers.

Please excuse the mess....

If you want to store the shoes in the locker, you could do them open like this one, but you'd lose the drawer space.

This was another mudroom that I used for inspiration. I opted for lockers instead of something open because with the lockers, I could have three double hooks in each one. I find we needed more hooks. I do like that this one has drawers and a seating area where you can store the shoes but I was working with a limited amount of space since I wanted a fridge in there too.

Also, when I visited a local closet store, they suggested that I didn't have the lockers open with storage for shoes underneath since it's very hard to clean the floor with all the dirt that winter boots bring in. I think that was why I opted for drawers. Now I can't open my drawers with the boots there but there are pros and cons for everything, I guess.

Also, pay careful attention to the material that you build the lockers with. The fancy schmancy closet organizer store didn't use solid wood so they warned me that I couldn't put anything too heavy on the hooks. I didn't want the hooks coming out of the lockers and leaving a big hole. I had a local carpenter build my lockers for half the price and he used real wood, not particle board or whatever the closet place was going to use.

That's my two cents...hope it helped.

Melissa

I very much support the idea of putting the laundry upstairs. (Not knowing your budget or the expense, of course!) We have ours upstairs and I love it. The clothes go from bedrooms and bathrooms to the laundry and right back. No more folding laundry on the main floor of the house. Additionally, it would free up important space for your mud room. Win-win. :-)

I think that moving the laundry is a great idea for your family.

As for the "mud room", we have considered doing the very same thing you are wanting to do and I've been researching a design for a while. We have decided that we definitely want to create "lockers" with actual doors vs. open because we want to hide all the visual clutter.

As for shoes, I'd like to have pull out shoe storage, but I'd like to figure out how to install a drip pan underneath so all water, snow, dirt, sand, etc. falls to the pan that can be easily discarded vs. collecting in the bottom of the drawers. Still haven't figured that out yet, but I'm hoping to soon :)

As for the powder room door, I'd definitely close it off from the kitchen.

YES!!! Move the laundry. You will love having it near the bedrooms. A suggestion for the mudroom is open space under the bench for shoes and boots--it will actually get used that way and be easier to clean. You can always place a cute throw rug under the bench to catch drips and mud. FWIW I would leave access to the half bath from the mudroom and close off the door from the kitchen.

Another vote for moving the laundry upstairs if you can! I love not having to haul laundry up and down the stairs.

I think maybe I'd do the opposite with the bathroom door than what others have recommended, not sure. Your kitchen is fairly large, and if you're happy with the layout and storage you'll get in there, leaving the bathroom door into the kitchen and closing the bathroom door into the mudroom will give you a way larger, way more flexible space for storage and benches in the mudroom. Plus it'll keep one traffic pattern out of your kitchen. It's nice not to have a bathroom right off the eating space, but maybe install an automatic door closer?

My husband likes the idea of closing off the door from the kitchen to the bathroom and maybe just using that picket door from the mudroom area to the bathroom.

I am a little worried about it though. That door isnt very wide - I guess I need to measure it. And right now its hard to picture going thru the mudroom and into the bathroom everytime because its so cumbersome and there is lots of crap to climb over (laundry baskets, shoes, vacuum). But I suppose that if we moved the laundry we could have that area tidied up quite a bit.

If we closed off the door to the bathroom from the kitchen, would you change the kitchen design any? I guess if we didnt have that door there we could potentially get a larger fridge or different set-up on that wall.

Our budget is pretty small. Like $30k, But we will do all of the work ourselves. DH is very handy. I think the only things we will have to hire out for is moving the gas line and probably sheet-rocking the ceiling once it is ripped apart for new lights. And of course installing the counters. Oh and refinishing the floors. DH will demo and install new cabinets and windows and recess the fridge, etc...

Agree to move the laundry upstairs if possible. Is the half bath used by guests? If so, consider closing both doors and moving the entry to where the pantry is located. This will give you a larger entry to the area. With that being said, do you leave the door to the garage open for any cross ventilation into the kitchen? Moving the door may not be ideal if yes.

Personally, I do not want cubbies because I want the grandbabies to hang their coats below their parents. Shoe storage is a big issue for us. I will probably have an open space under the bench that will be lined with a runner and plastic shoe trays. If I do drawers, they will be sized to fit a plastic liner and then I will place a towel on each that can be washed periodically. I may stack the drawers for multiple shoe storage and leave the area open under the seat for tall boots. DH and I both have mud boots and snow boots. Plus with four grandkids and six additional adults we will need lots of room!

I typed out a whole response for you yesterday, but then lost it somehow.

I was going to recommend the same thing as forbamblues. Is this powder room the bathroom that your guests will be using? If so, I'd much rather have the door off the kitchen than having them traipse through my mudroom. For one thing, I wouldn't want my guests having to see that clutter, and for another, they will then be walking all the way through your kitchen rather than just utilizing the top corner of the space (outside your work triangle).

I'm also going to be the oddball here and say I'd actually prefer my W/D to be on the first floor b/c that's where I spend all my time. Right now, my laundry is in our basement. Aside from the obvious walk up/down two flights of stairs, the other reason I don't like it there is because I hate having to go up and down the stairs all the time (from the kitchen/family room) to switch out loads of laundry. The same thing would happen if I had the laundry upstairs near the bedrooms - constantly having to go upstairs to switch out the loads. Perhaps my viewpoint is a bit jaded by the amount of laundry I do as a family of six, but I'd rather have the laundry nearby so when a load is done, I can more quickly get to it. That said, I do see the benefits of having the W/D near the hampers upstairs!

If, however, you find that you don't have it in your budget to move the W/D, this would be my suggestion. Close off the door from the mudroom to the powder room and move your W/D over to that wall where the door is now. You'd have to also take out the closet on the side wall, but then you could add cabinetry above the W/D to store what is in that closet. Then in the space where the W/D is currently you could put cubby/lockers.

As for shoe storage, we have a cubby system that dh built in our mudroom for our four kids. It looks very similar to the second photo that Melissa posted with the open storage underneath. I bought baskets from IKEA that my kids use for their shoes, but we don't' have an issue much with mud/rain/etc as they typically leave their boots or sports cleats in the garage. However, if you have to deal with that often, I'd suggest just buying an indoor/outdoor rug and put it underneath the cubby space to catch the dirt and water. They are very easy to keep clean (I have one in my entryway). In my own space, I just pull the baskets out every once in a while and vacuum with a handheld vacuum underneath the cubbies to get up all the dirt/dust/etc.

BTW, am I the only one who has this nice divided space for my kids to leave their backpacks/coats/shoes but they still manage to leave their crap all over? There are days I walk in the mudroom, and despite having a basket RIGHT THERE for their shoes, they still leave them all over the floor b/c they are too lazy to pull out their basket! Or they leave their sweatshirts/jackets/etc on the bench instead of hanging them up. Drives me nuts!

Good luck with your remodel - you have a great space to work with!

Thanks for the input!

motherof3sons - Yes, the 1/2 bath is used by guests. Its the only bathroom on the main floor of the house. I guess it really would be a pain to have everyone walking right thru the kitchen area to use the bathroom. But we get alot of traffic right there as it is - between accessing the garage and getting stuff from the laundry area. I like the idea of open space beneath a bench to put shoes there. I think that will work best for my family. I am in northern VT and we have lots of mud and snow on our boots and shoes for a big part of the year so something that is cleaned easily is key! I dont know how I feel about moving the door to the mudroom over towards the spot that I labelled "Pantry".

fourkids4us - I think I would prefer upstairs laundry. I do about 3 loads a week, so it would not be that cumbersome to do those upstairs. DH does 1-2 loads a week (yes he does his own laundry!) Carrying it downstairs then all the way back up while leaving that laundry area in disarray is killing me!

I agree that I'd prefer an 'outside' entrance to the bath for guests, instead of them going through kitchen and mudroom, which in our house, would be messy.

We, of course, do laundry for 10 of us. We originally planned the main laundry upstairs and a 2ndary one downstairs, but for ages, didn't even put laundry equipment in the spot downstairs, because the upstairs one was adequate and so much handier. I find it easy to put in laundry in the morning before going downstairs, then adjust loads during the day when I have other reasons to go upstairs, and often do loads at night, as everyone is readying for bed. We had laundry in the basement before, and it was a pain. I don't find this to be the same, since we're upstairs much more than we were in the basement. It's especially easier to get the kids to keep up with their own laundry this way. Just my own experience. :-)