Well, to me the mudroom you've designed is really just the 8x6 space you've shown. The other two rooms - powder room and laundry - are pretty much normal size and configuration in a small house. Typically, powder rooms are not part of a mudroom design. Same goes for full-service laundry rooms. Although, heck, you can do anything you want that suits your particular needs. For maximal utilization of the space, I would consider making it one large open space (perhaps smaller now that the walls are removed) and get rid of the bathroom there. Consider it s bulletproof area with a floor drain and solid surface floor (concrete or tile) for easy cleaning, wood walls into which you can screw hooks, shelves, cubbies, etc. Provide for good ventilation (humidity sensing exhaust fan) possibly a warming light depending on your climate. The utility sink is a great idea.

Laundry Room is missing some hanging space for those wrinkle free shirts and pants when the come out of the dryer. And if you put in a sink, you have almost no countertop for folding clothes. ( I don't know if you fold as they come out of the dryer or take them somewhere else first).

Mudroom is missing wall space for your bench and cubbies.

Why have a wall seperating the Mud Room and Laundry, why not seperate the Mud Room from the Kitchen? Then you could swap the Laundry and Mudroom, moving the Laudry cabinets to the exterior wall and the mudroom cubbies in the hall off the garage?

I'm not sure how to fix the space, but that's why you hire an architect. Tell him/her the features that this layout doesn't have and have them work them into version 2.0

Your powder room only needs to be between 7' and 7'6", depending on if you get an elongated toilet or not. Put a pocket door on it. Put a coat closet in the space you've now gained on the wall behind the powder room sink.

Switch the washer and dryer so that the dryer can vent outside more easily. Put a utility sink in the base cabinet to the left of the washer.

Put a wall where the left door to the deck is, and switch the direction the right door opens. Move the wall between the kitchen and laundry room as far to the right as you can, depending on where the powder room door ends, and put a pocket door in it. Put a cleaning supplies closet between this wall and the door to the deck. To the left of the moved wall, put a bench so that it goes under the window, leaving enough space to not interfere with the opening of the dryer door. You could put hooks on the 2 walls between the window and the door, with cabinets above. Or you could fit some cubbies with a shorter bench under the window.

I LOVE our similar area--like you, this is one of my favorite parts of the house! Yours will be a really nice area!

Anne

I would try to reconfigure the space so that you do not walk through your laundry room in order to enter your house from the garage. Try to have that laundry space set apart from the mudroom. It doesn't necessarily have to be in a separately walled off space, but definitely out of the main traffic path in and out of your house. We are in a rental where the configuration is like that and it drives us crazy bc we are walking over our laundry to get in and out of the house. I don't know about you, but we have a TON of laundry. When it was just the 2 of us, that wasn't so, but now that we have a brood of kids, we have mountains of laundry. Not sure if this is a really long term house, but just something to think about down the line.

Thanks for the help! I told the architect what I was hoping to get in my mud room and the plan posted above is what he drew. I was also confused by the fact that it was just an open space with doors (and no usable wall) beside the kitchen. So I want to go back to him with some specifics.

gobruno - I would like to have the door to the garage in the mudroom instead of the laundry area. Noone needs to walk past my mountains of laundry ;)

jimanddanne - great suggestions. I will take a closer look at the plans again tonight when I am finished my running errands.

bdpeck- I am definately hoping to gain some hanging space and to give myself more room for folding. maybe by taking the entry door out of the laundry area I can free up some space.

Thanks!! This will be a long term home for us. I was really discouraged by the architects design on this side of the house but you guys are really helping me see that there are plenty of possibilities.

Can you make the space a bit bigger by bumping into the garage utility area?

-I would put a wall between the kitchen and mudroom.
-change the double door from the deck to a single door that opens against new wall between mudroom and kitchen. space.
-get rid of door between mudroom and laundry room
-shift wall between mudroom and laundry room 2' to the left to line up with end of powder room.
-move the door from the garage to the mudroom where the toilet is(opposite the door from the deck to the mudroom.
-use a pocket door for the powder room.
-powder room can be 5' x 6'.
-there should now be about 6' of wall space to the left of the door from the deck to mudroom for lockers.
-laundry room is still small. If you can I would bump out into the new garage utility area.

We went a bit crazy on this part of the house. It's huge. LOL!

If the mudroom is your favorite area in the house, your architect needs to make sure that you are happy with it.

This is a suggestion using most of the mechanical area.
there are a couple of additional possibilities, one of them with a bigger bench but no window in the mudroom and also one that keeps the mechanical area (reduced) but no closet.
If you like this, I can give you the dimensions.