How much room to you have to devote to this area? Are you envisioning a combination mud room/message center area?

We are building a new house, but our previous house had a detached garage, and a direct entrance from the outside into the kitchen, which everyone except guests we didn't know well used. Luckily, the door to the laundry room was fairly close by, but I will tell you how I LONGED for a proper mudroom. I am very OCD and it drove me nuts to have people enter there. Family members would plop stuff all over my kitchen counters, and ugh, when it snowed the kids would just strip all their gear off right there in the kitchen!! I would definitely build a storage/mud area if I were you, and I would devote as much sq footage to it as you can give it. Needless to say, we have a storage-laden mudroom in our new house, right next to the back door! :)

Our kitchen is in front of house; we've got an L-shaped "kitchen hall" and lobby wrapping around two sides of the kitchen. It connects to a pair of outside doors--one to front step and one to garage (firedoor). We put in an 8 foot wide closet which is to the right of the door in this photo. Closet with two sliding doors has sufficient room for DH's hunting clothing and our winter gear. We made a closet boots niche which taps into a blind corner in the kitchen. There's a pullout metal mesh two-bin unit in there.

Unfortunately the closet doesn't show in these photos very well, but it is great. Dog leashes, dog nightlight for walking, whistle & poop bags are all put away now. Items headed to the library, the nursing home, the lake cabin are either in the closet or in this furniture piece.

We have these antique furniture pieces in here right now; not sure what I'll have there in the long run. Having the chairs in this room is very good for putting on boots, for putting on garden shoes, and for holding the stuff that people need to plunk when they come to visit. It's nice to keep the mail out of the kitchen!

Desk in this photo is obviously not being used in very desk-y ways yet. Corkboard at back is now the place where notices etc are pinned up. DH wanted a sit-down desk; I would have made it counter height with cabs below. Upper desk cab has phone chargers and the t.v. undermount can be swiveled to face kitchen, peninsula, or desk.

Basement stair is behind photographer; door to garage is at her left; door to front step is at end of the lobby area; to right of desk is peninsula seating and the new kitchen.

Here's a mud room entry from Houzz that I've always liked. If you have the room, something like this would always be a plus.

[traditional kitchen design[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/traditional-kitchen-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_709~s_2107) by boston general contractor Mitchell Construction Group

When you enter from our side porch you come into this mudroom area. As you can see on one side is a coat closet where we hang coats and store shoes. On the shelf above the coats we store our canning pots, etc.

What you can't see in these photos is a small, white cabinet that is located just inside the door. We use this to hold gloves, hats, mittens. We also have an umbrella stand now in the area where you see the green rain boots.

We have a courtyard entrance that opens into a short hallway leading to the kitchen. There's a bathroom, laundry room, and two closets off the hallway. The closet with French doors is basically divided in half. It has a rod for coats on one side and a number of shelves (I use them for bathoom linens and miscellaneous items) on the other. The closet on the other side of the hall is for utility items.

In our old house, like nini, everyone we knew well entered the back door that leads into the kitchen and it drove me NUTS! We even had a little space in a tiny "hallway" and inevitably all the coats, shoes, bags, hats, change, wallets, and other junk ended up cluttering up my island. I even had a small desk to the side that couldn't hold it all. It was so frustrating. When we moved that was one of the top criteria for our new house...that there not be a main entrance from outside into my kitchen. That said, if that is all you have and you can't change that, then I would find some way to contain it. If not, you will have to be the crazy woman herding everyone's things into the designated places daily. I have not seen specific "closets" in kitchens but I'm sure they exist. I would look at houzz.com for ideas. I am linking the search on there under "Entry" and I clicked on "popular" at the top. Lots of neat ideas! Good luck containing it all :)

Here is a link that might be useful: [Houzz Entryways[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/entryway-ideas-phbr0-bp~t_741)

We've always had an outside entry to our kitchen. We would only use the front door to get in (it was the only door that had a lock on it), and then we would use the slider that came directly into the hardwood in the kitchen. Everyone came in that way. All our junk got piled up in the (real) entryway, and we had a wall hanging mirror with hooks for coats etc. in the kitchen area, with a mat underneath for boots etc. It was always a big mess. In the remodel we did two things to change this: we put slate on the floor in our kitchen entry (which matched our real entry), and we had a closet built. We still have messes of boots and hats and gloves etc. etc. but it's contained and you can close the door on it. I love it:

leela love your floor!

Leela thats what I'm looking for! Although I don't think my closet will be able to be as large as yours. I have the option to make it super deep, but it will probably only be able to be as wide as a standard interior door. When I am really looking for is ideas for the best way to organize a closet like this so it is as effeicient as possible. Maybe I should be looking at closet systems? Our entire kitchen floor will be slate, so I've got that part covered. I actually LIKE entering through the kitchen - its the way I've entered every home I have ever lived in. I have lived in a couple houses that I never once (except for moving furniture) used the front door!

htracey, maybe you should consider a closet organization company? We did, we're glad, and most of it wasn't as expensive as anticipated.

We faced exactly your same issue. Our MBR closets were extremely deep but entered through the narrow end. The space was so bad we literally could not move in and unpack our clothes. So we moved up a project we expected to tackle much later and hired a local closet company. The results were fantastic. I actually have empty room in the same space that wouldn't fit a normal wardrobe before.

Best of all, most of it wasn't that expensive. We turned a weird little alcove into a closet, and that was pricey because it included a lot of drawers. But the closets themselves didn't have drawers, and those cost only in the hundreds, not thousands or anything.

The general configuration they came up with is a "U" of shelving up top, two layers of clothing rods on the back, shallow shelving on one side, and deeper shelving on the other, with "long hang" (space for long coats, etc) right below the deeper shelving. Works great.

Sounds interesting marcolo - have any pics?

Ha! I'd sooner sing the national anthem on TV off-key than post a photo of my closet online! But the setup I described is fairly standard. I'd seriously consider calling a closet company and pricing it out.

Good point Marcolo - When I think of the current state of my closet, I come to the same conclusion.

Htracey- marcolo has a great point about a closet organization company. I just bought the supplies for my master closet at C0ntainerst0re on saturday and then I got an email today saying their ELfa line went 25% off. They have all sorts of pieces to accomplish exactly what you are looking for and its all modular. I LOVE it. HTH