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Laundry Room Design Dilemma Bathrooms

Full Bath to Half Bath for a nice Laundry Room & Mudroom?

4 years ago

We live in a 3 bedroom and 3 bathroom home. The third full bathroom is separated from the bedrooms, located near the second living room and next to the laundry room. The current laundry room is tiny, a burden, and the route to get to the garage.

Currently, one cannot open both doors to walk through the room and opening both doors means shuffling side to side to get out of the way of the doors. Since the appliances take up 60% of the room you must shuffle around as there's no other room for the doors to swing in and out. It's irritating as I always park my car in the garage, so this is my inlet and outlet to the house.

We were thinking to remove the unused shower from the adjacent bathroom changing it to a half bath/powder room and to use that space for a larger laundry room. It would mean moving the appliances out of the pathway and maybe adding a boot bench, hooks, and cubbies for a mudroom.

Do you believe this adds or removes value from the home?

Featured Answer

PRO

Patricia Colwell Consulting

4 years ago

IMO if the bathroom you are thinking of is not next to a bedroom I think your idea is a good one. Function is always the first consideration when renovating and I think you need the function of the space more that the shower and powder room is still functional.

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Comments (7)

Jennifer Hogan
4 years ago
Second what Patricia is saying. Functional laundry is more important than a 3rd shower that has no real purpose where it is located
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I am attaching a floor plan with measurements of our current laundry room. As we walk in from the garage, the laundry room is on the right and is a rectangle (12'10" x 6'). We are able to steal an alcove type area from our current family room to add to the laundry room. This area will be a total re-do and our goal is to add a toilet and create a mudroom (bench, hooks, landing zone) type area. Dh and I keep going back and forth on whether we should put in a stackable washer/dryer into the alcove, or if it would make more sense to put the toilet there. I've also attached a current photo of the area (not staged). We've only been in this home a couple of months so things are still a bit of a mess! Appreciate any advice!
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Thank you all again for the feedback. I'm really leaning towards sacrificing the laundry room and going with a powder room. The more I think about it and think about the way I do laundry, I believe the ROI (for me) on a separate powder room would be greater. I'm attaching a drawing, but I there really isn't much to work with. The area outlined it red is initially going to be a family room, but in a couple of years it will convert to an in-law-suite, so we want/need to keep that area separate the way it is (so ignore the bathroom there, that's part of the suite). The room labeled with the red L and blue B is the current laundry room, proposed change to powder room/mudroom. The alcove with the blue L is where I am thinking of moving the laundry, and the red X in the area to the far right is the location of the main floor bathroom in the existing house. And yes, we have walls, I just didn't draw them out! :-)
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Original poster here, adding a photo of current state.
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Looking for ideas for this small space. Do I open the half bath wall and combine with laundry? I know I need front loaders so I can have a counter over them. Do I also take off the bi-folding closet door so it’s an open ‘mudroom’ with bench and shelves? This is actually the most used entrance in my house...
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Jennifer Hogan
4 years ago
Value isn't just about square footage or number of bedrooms and bathrooms. Would have you paid less for the house when you bought it if it didn't have the third shower? if it were a 2 1/2 instead of a 3 bath home? If you wouldn't have paid more for the extra shower neither will anyone else.
Denita
4 years ago
last modified: 4 years ago
All good points above.

The best thing though is to post a floorplan with dimensions of the area to see what would be optimal. From what you describe it sounds like you have made a valid analysis and a good decision to remove the shower so you have a better functioning space. IMPO, having 2-1/2 baths and a more functional laundry trumps 3 full baths.
PRO
User
4 years ago
It depends on the home as a whole. Post a layout. If that serves a guest room, then no.
everdebz
4 years ago
Idk how wide your current space is, but what about pocket doors instead?
lascatx
4 years ago
Does the third bath function as a powder room that just happens to have a shower or is there another reason for it? Pool bath? Shop or outdoor cleanup before entering the main house? Can't really think of any others, but those might be reasons why someone would pay more for a full bath in that location, but if it's functionally a powder room, a shower wouldn't seem to add any value at all -- functional laundry space will.

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