Help with Drop zone design in combo mudroom/laundry room
K H
3 years ago
last modified: 3 years ago
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K H
3 years agolast modified: 3 years agoRelated Discussions
Drop Zone/Office Vs. Mudroom
Comments (5)We are combining all those functions in the house we are building. Between the house and the garage is a generous, triangular room that is roughly 400 square feet. Cabinets are going in this week, so I should know shortly if what we planned works as intended. When you exit the kitchen/living area, you go through the mudroom to the garage. From the kitchen to the garage is a little less than 6' on the short wall (between the doors to those parts of the house). The short wall has a window, and the wall opposite it is much longer and has two double-wide windows and a door to the patio. This door is the shortest path between the house and our barn (horse farm). Along this wall will be desks and filing cabinets. It will be a drop zone for mail and bills and paperwork, and our printer will be located here. We use laptops and the printer will be on an airport station so we can work from any room of the house and keep the mess and noise of the printer in the office area of our mudroom. This wall is about 14' long (not counting the door, which is at an angle). Along the wall between garage and mudroom are the washer, dryer, sink, cat genie, and cabinets and countertop space. We don't have a linen closet in the master, so we will store linens here in the laundry area. This wall is about 28' long. The wall between the kitchen/living area and the mudroom has the "mudroom" function with cubbyholes, hooks, and bench. Also in this wall is a large closet for coats and boots, opening into the mudroom. A generous pantry is located behind the bench and cubbyholes and opens into the kitchen. And a small broom closet at then end of the wall opens into the space facing the short wall, where you travel from kitchen to garage. There is a generous amount of space in the middle of the floor, which may be left open, may eventually have a table or a church pew. I need to spend some time with the space once we move in to be sure. Our house is about 1800 square feet on the main footprint, not counting this mudroom or the garage. We hope that this area keeps all the mess of living out of the main house and is a very utilitarian room. We went with the new, large pattern Formica and solid oak (non-custom) cabinets in this area, saving the $$$ over higher-end materials to put into less utilitarian parts of the house. (Formica here let me have built-ins in the study.) Hope this helps....See MoreHelp me design my laundry / mudroom
Comments (12)You'd probably want to leave an inch on either side of the pair and an inch between them just to be on the safe side. The standard model they give me on the layout program is 30" wide, so with those dimensions side by side is a no go. With your dimensions and adding the 3" of wiggle room, that would put you right up against the 24" deep countertop running under the windows. So it could be done, but you are pretty much locked in to that size washer and dryer from then on. I like the idea of putting the rack in the pantry style closet--that's what my mom does with hers. Another thought is to do pullout hampers. We are doing 3 sets of them. They are actually tall trash pullouts, but they will allow the kids to go ahead and sort their clothes when they bring them in to the laundry room & I can just load them in the washer. I like the idea of the shelves for the clean clothes baskets too. We did the corner sink and it looks great. We used a single basin stainless undermount large D-shaped sink. You would not believe the space in there and I don't have to worry about it staining or yellowing or cracking like alot of the "laundry sinks" out there. I've attached an 'under construction" pic for you of our countertop & sink. I don't have time right now, but I'll work on some elevations for you with some additional ideas....See MoreKitchen and drop zone design advice
Comments (33)My husband was thinking of using the old refrigerator space as a real closed off closet. I wanted to use it as a mail sorting counter/desk. How you use the old fridge space will depend on your needs. Do you need more closet space for coats more than a mail sorting/desk area? Is there somewhere else that coats can go? Ditto for the mail sorting/desk area. If you go with Plan B, perhaps the latter can go in the peninsula area. Maybe you can re-purpose the existing hutch. You can cover any interior mess with fabric or decorative paper on the glass cab doors (corn starch should work and won't harm the piece). I like that option B has a place for non-cooking people to be in the kitchen... Can you think of a way to add feature to option A? What would you think of a small, moveable (maybe on wheels) island? I think the peninsula seating and salvaging the DR hutch are a big plus of Plan B. I'll keep working on a way to add counter seating to Plan A. No, a small movable island is not the solution for Plan A. You do not have enough room between perimeter runs. A movable island would *always* be in the way. The only way I can see adding island seating of any sort is to go with a U lay-out with an 18" wide island that is nothing more than counter with seating. IOW, no storage. It would be similar in size to the long, narrow island in the kitchen pic that I posted on Saturday. Or something like this (but possibly even narrower, I think). How many counter seats do you hope to get? What is the minimum number? I'm open to moving the dining room/living room wall, but I'm thinking of planning that for "phase 2." Thoughts or considerations if moving that wall is to be done at a later date? Moving or removing the wall can be part of "phase 2." I would definitely add the window seat now, though, so that your narrow study/DR will be comfortable. I estimate that the room currently is about 8.5' wide, which is quite narrow for a dining room. A window seat will help ease the space crunch around the table. I'm estimating that your table is 42" round. If it hangs over the window seat by 4", that would leave 66" of aisle between table and LR wall, which allows some room for the table to be extended. FYI, 44" is NKBA's recommended minimum aisle width behind seating to allow people to walk past seated diners. 36" is enough room for people to slide past. We have 28" between kitchen table and couch but DH is the only one who sits on that side of the table; we only need enough room to pull the chair out, not an aisle between table and couch. I'm estimating that the bay is about 2' deep at its deepest. If you don't add a window seat but use that additional depth for a chair, you'd have 50" between table and LR wall and 36" between table and window. Or center it in the room and have 43" at the left and right end. This works as long as it's just a round table. You lose the additional 2' depth from the bay when you extend the table so you'd end up with 31" to the left and right of the table, which is very tight. That's why I suggest that you remove or move the existing wall between study and LR. It would seem out of scale to have a large LR, FR and kitchen and a dinky little DR. Moving the wall will require drywall/plaster repair and floor repair. Depending on what's inside the wall (plumbing, HVAC), you may have to relocate things to other walls. I think it would be a good idea to determine what's inside this wall when you do Phase 1 so that you can plan ahead and avoid having to redo work done in Phase 1 when you do Phase 2. A competent GC should be able to help you with this. How many adults do you think could comfortably be seated in the new living room? I estimate that the new LR will be 13' x 13.5' (guessing on the first since you didn't provide measurement for space, top to bottom). Smaller than you currently have but still doable, IMO. You should be able to get a full size couch and 2 chairs or 2 full size couches or some other configuration of seating. How many do you need to accommodate? What LR furniture do you already own? This seems like a detail, but it would be nice to have a spot to store brooms and mops with a shelf for cleaning supplies and an outlet for charging the handheld vacuum. Where would you put that? You can add a broom closet pull-out in the mudroom area or in a cab next to the pantry cabs. Or in your existing pantry area by the back stairs. Pics of the existing pantry area would be helpful to see how they could be reworked to suit your needs. Lastly, I can't thank you enough. This is all super helpful! I love your suggestions and your photos. Your kitchen is lovely. Are you a professional? Thanks again! You're welcome! And thank you! And nope, just a TKO floorplanaholic (Totally Kitchen Obsessed). =) What would be helpful for you and DH, and for me would be for you to determine what things you want/need to store in the drop zones, how much room these items need and what type of storage is most useful for them. Coat hooks? Cubbies for sports gear? Shoe storage? Drawers for school papers? Charging station? How much mail sorting area do you need?...See MoreFloor layout help with a 11' 6" x 11'11" laundry/mudroom/bath
Comments (27)I am not a guru but I can give you my opinion. Melanie on the regrets - while trying to minimalize them they still will happen! Flip side is you will likely also have some grrr that ends up turning out different but BETTER than you imagine. IMO stealing the foot makes it much more functional so I would do it in a heartbeat but I am not the expert. It also opens it up and will 'feel' better. I think that's a good spot for a broom closet and charging station and should easily stay tidy. It is about 5' wide yes? That is a nice size space. Measure what you have you want to store in there and then look for pics of what you are thinking. Utility sink in the garage - really in the winter there isn't much dirt and when it's exposed it's frozen too so I'd think the utility sink would get more use in the spring summer fall when it's thawed so I'd keep it on the table too. My opinion - your money. Ha! As far as 'enough room' - it sounds like your kids are younger based solely upon still being in the 'add more' season of life. :) I can tell you only to think seasons, think sports, cleats, basketball shoes, church shoes, boots, hiking shoes, tennis shoes, flops, bats, ball caps, backpacks, lunch boxes, water bottles (if you have girls think even MORE shoes and then purses - ack)........ I will say for my 2 the space we have is more than adequate and it's quite roomy (I just double checked and it's actually 6.5' on a side so each person has 3' plus). That said we also have a closet near that I put off season stuff in and dog food. Winter coats and snow pants and boots are not in the locker area all year. I put them in the closet over spring/summer/fall. As long as you have a spot for that I think you are fine. Off season can closets can always be in the basement as well. There are always sweatshirts hanging and ball caps. Besides that there is always a stray nerf gun, goggles, flash lights and what have you hanging out there. I don't mind it there - it's out of the way and not underfoot! Old house it used to be in their rooms and all over. We had no designated space for outdoor wear anyplace besides bedrooms. If I am feeling brave I will snap a real life pic of it in action. It is easy to pick up and look presentable when needed but typically M-F it's a dumping spot. I like an open bench vs doors because we do use it to sit down to put stuff on and take stuff off regularly. And when our parents come and use that entry they love to be able to sit down to put on and remove shoes. It's comfortable and useful. With your window placement in the bathroom and the exterior door you will find it a nice light filled space. Our exterior door there is 3/4 glass and I love how it lights the hall. It is never a dark space....See MoreK H
3 years agoK H
3 years agolast modified: 3 years agoK H
3 years agoK H
3 years agolast modified: 3 years agoK H
3 years agoK H
3 years agolast modified: 3 years agoK H
3 years agolast modified: 3 years agoK H
3 years agoK H
3 years ago
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