You must have two means of egress from a dwelling.

You should get better responses if you attach your floor plan.

Thank you PPF, I'll upload one later tonight.

I wouldn't want guests coming in the same door as my "Stuff" was. Separate Main door for sure.

If the area is generally muddy (and snowy) and visitors are generally close friends and family, then I would have no problem with a single "mudroom" entry. A formal entry is a nice convenience but no more useful than a formal living room that is "saved" for company. I would upgrade the mudroom so that there is plenty of storage and a good bench on which to sit when changing shoes (outdoor footwear to indoor footwear). A nice touch is to have hotel-like slippers for guests to use. A home is meant to be a safe, comfortable place in which to relax. Don't worry about a formal entrance. I doubt people will refuse to visit you if they have to use the "side" entrance. Be careful of what the front elevation looks like though. With a front door, this can get unbalanced.

Guests: front door and good entry sequence to living/family room. Family: mud room and place to change shoes/boots; entry sequence is secondary.

Not a Pro.

If I read correctly, the garage will not be attached to the house. Can you make an enclosed attached porch/mudroom between house and garage that can be used for family, with an entrance of it's own?

Inspiration:

Reinvented Farmhouse · More Info

Have you considered what a sole entry to the house through a mud room would do to your resale value?

Am I misunderstanding? If you have a fire, your family will only have one means of escape? Surely not.

We have three doors on our house, but only one “entry”, which is into our mud room space. Just practical, not odd.

We also live on a working farm. You definitely need a place for muddy boots and coveralls in the winter. However, I wouldn't want my guests to have to to wade through all that to enter the house. Surely there is a way to have both. I'm anxious to see your plan.

We have a mudroom...and I am a very neat & tidy person. But no matter how well organized a mudroom is...no way in he-double hockey sticks do I want guests coming in that door. I would not buy a house like that. I keep thinking about things like dd’s date picking her up for prom, or how I decorate the foyer for Christmas, or when I have the PTA board meetings here, or any of a million other things that make me happy I have a proper foyer.

Our house also has a detached garage. There is a foyer/mud room combination. It is fine for us. We have 2 other doors, one to a covered porch and one back door.

I'm with everyone else: NO. You need a front door.

Maybe a floorplan will make us think differently, but I doubt it.

Some of you are so literal!

Trying to consolidate a formal entry and a mud room entry does not exclude having a back slider or patio door. OP never said they wanted to build a cave with only one way in/out.

Hey all,

Thank you for the replies so far! I apologize I don't literally mean a single way in or out, there is a sliding door that leads onto the porch towards the home garden and possibly another into the backyard. This is a quick mock up I did on Sweet Home 3D just now as my wife and I have done most of the work drawing by hand. The porch isn't shown on the mock up because I didn't know how to illustrate it well on the program in a short period of time. This is our first go at it and so there are still many modifications to be made.

Thanks for including a north pointer -- something no one ever does.

This is only intended as a general idea. Spread the house out so it has more southern exposure. Turn the inlaw space so the bath buffers the living area.

The short hall created might be a place for an exterior door.

Where is the garage and how is it accessed -- where is the drive?

It would be your forever home. Not what you think, you will not be able to sell it and you will be stuck with it forever.

Lots of things to consider. Here are my initial questions and I'm I'm sure others will chime in with their own.

1) What direction will the home face? (edited: oops, now I see it :) )

2) Where is the detached garage located in relation to the entrance in question?

3) Is the front of the house on the south side of the shown plan?

4) How many square feet are you aiming for?

Alright,

The driveway is circular and swings about 10-12 ft north of the kitchen.

The garage is planned to be located to the North-East of the house in an area closer to our barn and hay barn. It will serve more for storage and a workshop then for storing my pickup. Although, I must say we aren't even sure we need one. At the current house, its barely used and we don't see much appeal in it.

The front of the house faces north, the south side faces out towards our backyard and pastures.

We are aiming for about 2500sq ft. not including the basement but possibly including a half story upstairs. We would love to minimize square footage while still being super liveable, we plan for this home to be our forever home and at one point long down the road, we move into the in-law suite while our kids and their family take over the rest of the house.

I've done it and it worked well but the detached garage would make it more difficult.

"You must have two means of egress from a dwelling."

The IRC only requires one egress door from a dwelling but some jurisdictions amend it to require two. In any case, required egress doors must be side-hinged so a sliding door would not comply.

So what you're showing is you're only entry into the house is from the mudroom through your kitchen, then dining room? I can't think of an entrance to a house that is less appealing and less inviting.

Now having said that, I can see that as a secondary entrance for friends and family (I have something like that) but I also have a more "formal" entry that leads guests to the living room

"we plan for this home to be our forever home and at one point long down the road, we move into the in-law suite while our kids and their family take over the rest of the house. "

I think your in-law suite needs greater separation and its own living quarters (i.e., kitchenette and living area) for this to work long-term.

Right now, I'm thinking a U-shaped or H-shaped home might provide the best separation of bedrooms and access to common spaces as well as provide a more aesthetically pleasing exterior.

ARG, I love your projects

I grew up on a farm in a cold climate and we had a detached garage (although the cars never got to enjoy it.) We used the main entry 99% of the time and didn't have a dedicated mudroom. My mom certainly wished we had one.

If you have a mud room in proximity to the entry, a single entry can work. Keep in mind that most of the year guests will arrive at your door with the same stuff on their boots as you do, although hopefully, any brown stuff on theirs will be pure mud.

A better approach is a separate entry to a mudroom as ARG has suggested.

Before anything is decided, though, you need a good plan for your needs and the one you posted is not it.

In our upcoming remodel/addition, our side entrance from our attached carport will be the main entrance into our home. Cpartist calls hers the "friends entrance" and since living in Small Town USA means that everyone is your "friend" (well, except maybe the census taker), that's a good name for ours, too. However, immediately when you walk into the side foyer, the mudroom will be on the right and will be a walk-through mudroom, meaning that our family can come into the mudroom directly before proceeding into the rest of the house.

BTW, we live on a working cattle farm so I'm all too familiar with the muck and mire that boots and clothes bring in which is why I'm adamantly opposed to a mudroom being the main entrance to the house. I can't imagine trying to carry groceries in while tripping over the inevitable pile of Muck boots that have gotten knocked over (domino effect).

I grew up in a home where the mudroom was the entrance, and live in a home now that is the same. My parent's mudroom was an organized mess and they had people over all the time. In my house, I keep everything behind floor-to-ceiling cabinets. However, in our area, it's pretty common for most older homes to not have foyers. You either walk through the mudroom or straight into the living room. Only the newer developments seem to have designated foyers. I guess it really just depends on the area and what is common. I would have no qualms about buying another house where you walked straight into a mudroom, but then again, I'm attracted to older farmhouses and stay away from developments.

Just a thought when revising your plans, how about making a large entry/foyer

with doors that lead to each of the living quarters. That way when in-laws have

guests, they use the same foyer and don't have to come into your section.

Consider this concept:

We live on a farm too, in Alberta, so lots of snow, and lots of mud when it rains. My goal for our new house which we finished the other year was to keep the actual mud and dirt, bits of straw and hay, and dirty shoes, as far away from the interior of the house as possible to keep it as clean as possible because I have too much other work to do, between looking after the farm, family, gardening, another business and also my freelance work. After 25 years of living on a farm (I lived in the city before I married), I've found that dirt and mud love to migrate : ) . So for me the best strategy is not to let it in in the first place.

Which is why we set up several mudroom areas in the garage. The first line of defense is by the garage walk-in door, where there are hooks for coveralls, jackets, etc. and lots of space for muddy boots. The second line of defense is the large landing, where there are more hooks for "cleaner" (ie town vs chore) outerwear and also things like the bag for the Goodwill shop, another bag with library returns etc, a rod with hangers, space for footwear. We also have a bathroom with shower in the garage, which is very useful during calving season, after gardening or changing the oil in the trucks. And there's also a secondhand washing machine for chore clothes in the garage too. There's another bathroom with shower in the house by the back/garage door entry, which is what we usually use for washing hands when we come in from outside.

I don’t mind a more casual Friends Entrance. It’s a good concept. A Friends Entrance is NOT a Worker’s Entrance. The Work Entrance is also the good spot for the cat litter box. I wouldn’t want friends walking through the Cat Toilet and zoomie zone either.

But I draw the line at having even family members walk past the filthy work clothes that I’ve shed completely on my way to showering off. Those filthy shoes, clothes, and undergarments, are going to lay there while the other laundry load finishes up, and then they get separated into used-to-be-whites, and darks. I’m still not enough of a rebel to wash lights and dark together, no matter how filthy. If a full larger bath with shower is attached, that’s one solution to having filth work and non dirty family co-exist. But the bath needs to be large enough, close to an entry door, and have a hose out drain for the mud, manure, or grass clippings, etc..

A Friends Entrance is not where your kid’s teacher comes through. Or your spouse’s boss. Or people that you’ve invited for dinner. Not unless they are helping you build the patio first before you feed them.

If I lived in a bad climate like yours, I sure would want an attached garage, even if it's only attached by a breezeway.

Please rethink the north facing entry. Relic Farm our former Kansas Farm had a north facing driveway. It was always the last thing to melt. I would have loved to have a south facing entrance.

Wanted to 2nd what Res 3d Sketches said above - only 1 exterior door is required on a stick-built house. You can certainly (and probably will) have more but only 1 door is required. Bedrooms & basements need egress but that can be done with windows.

We’re building our house on 60 acres and will have a combined foyer/mudroom.

I realize it will sometimes (often) be a mess. It’s ok with me if my guests see things that aren’t perfect, and it’s important to me that my family has a pleasant and functional entrance to the house. We will be using it 99% more than guests will.

We will have a bench and a huge closet for storage in the entry, as well as a large covered entry porch with a hose and some hooks for the truly filthy outerwear.

Good luck on your home design, OP.

Thank you all, for your advice and tips! My wife and I will definitely take these into consideration as we develop the plan more and have a better idea of what it will look like. I am sure we will be back with more questions later on.

Selene, a history of your comments shows that you're both mostly interested in promoting the replica MCM furniture sold at a NYC furniture store, Manhattan Home Design. You wouldn't happen to work there or own the store, or be friends or partners (personally or professionally) with someone who is, would you?

Also, there have been more than a dozen BBB complaints in the past three years about the store you've been recommending, which I would find problematic if I were looking to buy something there.

Your posts in this thread and others sound very similar to some by Gabriella Robbins, James Sorenson, Daniel Blake and others, who are all also promoting MCM replica furniture in general, and Manhattan Home Design in particular. Are all of you friends or partners in this venture? Or bots? Because this is looking very co-ordinated at this point.

Hey! How did your project evolve? Hopefully you found a good solution and were able to toss out the less useful opinions. I know it's an old thread but it's still relevant and useful...

We live on a working farm in a snowy climate with livestock too, no in-laws, thank goodness. We have an attached garage but it's filled with firewood, a chest, freezer, garbage/recycle bins, and our milk stand. When we are REALLY dirty we use that door and can hang boots in the garage to dry, coming into the kitchen in socks and not much else. :) We also have a 'basement mudroom' which is mostly just a lot of hooks for our coveralls rain coats, rainpants- stuff we want handy-ish- and a throw rug. Our front door also faces north and there's never been a good way to park and get to the front door nor just walk to the door. (It needs work). In ten years nobody has ever come to that door, except a lazy letter carrier. We could go a month, easily, without ever opening the front door..

The main/back door has a simple and small entry of about 6x5 and to the left of the entry is a framed doorway (no door) to our busy mudroom. We are a family of 5. It's fairly well organized with lots of shelving and baskets, but also not really tidy. It works. Most people that come over for the first time oogle over the mudroom and say they wish they had one. I love it too! It was a top 3 priority in our house hunting and anyone that says a mudroom is inappropriate for guests to witness lives a very different life than me and my friends. I painted it a really dark blue-green so it would visually disappear as you come in and it hides (some) muck. It totally works.

Absolutely 100% a working farm should have a mudroom right by the most used door.

Still curious what you did.

I did not read all the comments but we have a mountain home with a mudroom/entry that feeds to the living and kitchen - separate doorways to each. It essentially is a large hall with stone flooring, a built in bench, hooks, cabinets. It can be neatened up when needed to but functions great to get snowing boots and gear off. Stores all the gear and keeps our hardwoods clean. It is not formal but nor is the home. I love it over a formal or side entry since guest often also need to shed winter gear. I don’t have to take them to a side area or garage.