Thanks for sharing the ways in which you all use your back entries and storage spaces. It is helpful to know what the most useful areas are to you! The room labeled "pantry" would be used more for storage of odd items, similar to chisue's closet. It will house the vacuum, cleaning supplies, ironing board, and extra overflow from the kitchen. The entrance from the mudroom into the house comes between the living area and kitchen, with the kitchen being to the left as you walk in. My main concerns come with the laundry area of the room. I really would like a designated place to hang wet delicate clothes that won't be dried. Right now I have a collapsible drying rack that I absolutely hate and can't wait to throw out. Are stationary rods the answer? And should this area be across from the washer/dryer, taking some of that space currently designated for the closet?Where do you all make room for that? Oruboris, we also need a wide range of outerwear in our climate. That is why I'm not sure about taking out the closet to make room for more exposed hooks and shelving. I don't want the closet to become a dumping ground mess...however, I'm not sure that I want everything out in the open either. And if I take space from the closet area to make more room for laundry, will there still be adequate space to have a functional closet? Am I even making sense anymore? I definitely don't want to find myself with too little storage space. To put a small bath in that area would take space from somewhere. Should it come from the "pantry" area? I guess this would need a total reconfiguration of the room. And this is my problem--I don't know how much space needs to be dedicated to each function of the room. Is the 4' bench and 2' wide cubbies enough area for 4 people to come in and shed coats? How big is a minimum area for a 1/2 bath? Any more suggestions? Thank you!

Alicia, the "WC" is the water closet, or toilet room. Not silly at all to ask . . . I'm the original "what does that mean" person!! By folding table, I actually meant a table for folding clothes, not that the table itself folds. I'll take a photo as soon as I can . . . right now the W/D are in the middle of the room so trim carpenters can finish behind it. Here's another idea: Would you consider putting the actual closet in the garage? You and your guys could keep current coats/jackets on the hooks behind the bench, and use the closet for storing out-of-season things. If you removed the closet from the mud room, it would open up lots more space for both laundry and benches. In our last house, we had a wall rack for grubby outerwear in the garage, and liked the idea so much that we're repeating it in this house, adding a bench under the rack so we can get rid of gardening & yardwork jackets and boots before ever entering the house. This bench will be very utilitarian -- no glamour at all! Just inside the side entrance, we'll have a more finished, nice bench with beadboard backing and places for normal outerwear. We loved keeping really nasty stuff confined to the garage. My last laundry room had a deep plastic utility sink, which was okay but it stained easily. This time my countertop people had a couple of Kohler SS single-bowl sinks that they'd bought for a display and never used -- they gave me such a good price that I felt like I was stealing them!! I'm using one of them in the laundry room. I should be able to get a photo of my folding table tomorrow or Tuesday -- check back then.

I posted this site a couple days ago... some really fun color combos on here - see below. I am planning for my laundry room, walls of Behr Sugar Berry (light mauvish grayish pink) with ivory trim, and accents of mauve and light blue. It was basically a pre-made color combo from one of the Behr inspiration colors. Here is a link that might be useful: Design Seeds

Thanks, I was thinking if we did fit in a shower & toilet, we'd definitely want some way to make it more private. Right now there's actually a wall that goes from above the garage door on the left to the kitchen doorway. I was thinking if we kept that, maybe we could make it a pocket door so that it could be open most of the time unless someone needed privacy? This is what the current layout is. We have the freezer in the room labeled Util. and it's so cramped and hard to open the washer & dryer.