We have lived in our current home for nearly 15 years, and its time for the mudroom to get an overhaul. Its vintage 1988. This area is connected to our garage and our kitchen. I have been trying to figure out how to rearrange this space and its difficult. I need this space to have the following:

* laundry area (ideally not too close to the kitchen for "sound" purposes). We are NOT put away the laundry quickly kind of people - finished laundry WILL be sitting on top of the washer and dryer...and nearby countertops.

* powder room (which will be the primary bathroom for guests, so it needs to be "nice enough"/accessible without going through a mess...)

* storage for laundry supplies, cleaning supplies and, ideally, some pantry space.

* Access to my lovely screened porch that is more "connected" to the kitchen area/not through the middle of my mud room - moving that door closer to the kitchen is a "must".

* Also note that, for various reasons which will never change, EVERYONE enters my house though the mud room - so treat this area as though its also my foyer to some extent (it needs to look "presentable"

Probably not obviously, but note that moving the entry door from the garage to another location is a bit limited - we have stairs going down to the basement from the garage and a 6" raised concrete slab at the head of the stairs (no idea why in the world that is the case, but it is what it is. There is no "moving" that thing....) Overall space is 214.5" long and 122.5" wide (so just under 18' long and just over 10' wide).

Any thoughts/suggestions/help would be appreciated. I have done about 100 layouts, but I find the dimensions here really difficult to work with for some reason. Looking for some fresh points of view...I have also included the "best" layout that I have been able to come up with. One was "bigger" than the other on my screen when I screen-shotted it, but they are based on the same dimensions. One square = 3" on my drawings...