I have a mudroom/laundry. office and pantry combination. No cubbies as there are no children in the home. Kitchen on one end, garage entrance on others. We have hooks just outside in garage for wet clothes and a shoe rack also. Desk side. Coat closet, desk area. Cabinets above house vases, holiday glassware, cookbooks, and one with batteries, flashlights and misc. File drawers and desk drawer. The big one on the far end holds large bag of dog food and other dog items. Not in picture but located left of coat closet is my drying closet for drying sweaters and things that don't go in the dryer. Louvered doors and there is wiring for a heater/fan combo but we didn't put it in. The heated floors seem to do the job nicely. Sink W/D side. on the far end left is floor to ceiling pantry with slideout drawers inside.Next upper cabinet holds misc kitchen gadgets that are not used to often. Other side of sink upper has detergent and other laundry needs as well as cleaning supplies. Small cabinet up above that holds some tall vases. Then comes stacked W/D with a small cabinet above that has kerosene lamps and other seldom used items. Below counter left of sink drawers with candles and other small holiday deco in top drawer, second drawer down is husbands snack drawer, 3rd drawer has some kitchen pans and other weird shaped things in it. Second set of drawers has tablecloths and placemats in top drawer, extra plastic wrap, paper towels etc in 2nd drawer, various small kitchen appliances in bottom drawer. Cleaning supplies under sink. Next top drawer and second drawer holds small household tools and other such items. Next top drawer has paper goods and misc. Two bottom drawers just misc stuff.

Thanks, camlan! Per your suggestion, we're going to try out the new mudroom location, starting this weekend. The cars are parked right outside the garage and this laundry room, so it's actually a quicker trip inside than entering by the back door, and that area gets snow cleared no matter what. No homework at the moment, the kids aren't old enough yet. I suppose it may be an issue in a few years, though, and there may be times when my husband has to get his work laptop up from downstairs, though. It's a trade-off, but I'm guessing it won't be a huge deal. I think you're right that we may not have enough space for all our winter things with the plan I proposed. On the other hand, we don't have enough space for them now, either :-P. If we do stick with the bottom wall as mudroom, the storage plan there is going to be crucial. Not my strong suit, alas. I'd love to do the Pax units like you suggested, but I don't think there's enough wall length to accommodate it. The door to the garage needs space to swing, so the bottom right corner can't have anything that sticks out more than a few inches. I was thinking of a shallow shoe cabinet, or maybe wall mounted shoe cabinets (like these) to go behind that door. There's probably a total of 4.5 ft of space along that wall for deeper storage and/or a bench without crowding the door to the rest of the basement. Thanks again for all your cautions and suggestions!

I love planning spaces so I took some time and drew up three ideas for you. This was my first idea, with the thought that it would be nice to have the most used room at the forefront. But soon realized you'd have a larger folding area if you used the top of your washer and dryer for folding so I made a few changes utilizing the last photo GeoKid shared as inspiration. Then it dawned on me that having the two sinks basically side by side and the fact that moving the toilet would be costly I thought I should remove the bathroom sink and use a double sink with a large deep side for soaking and small shallow side for washing hands when something is soaking. This last one is my favorite. Even though it doesn't give you two separate rooms I feel, because of the W/D being hidden you get the best use of the space without having the added cost of moving too much of the plumbing and electrical. This post was edited by justgotabme on Wed, Sep 18, 13 at 21:03

I meant to add that the bath will stay to the left as in the drawings and walls, windows, and door locations can be moved. The only thing that can't be changed are the original 17' 9" x 7'9" dimensions of the area.