Hmmm. Given those two choices I would say mudroom entry to PR. Although, some people here give great solutions so you might want to post the floor plan and see if anyone has a different arrangement that you hadn't thought of.

I would put it where it makes sense for day to day, not for guests, But I would design the mudroom so it could be kept organized pretty automatically, and wasn't a mess for guests to walk through.

Visibility into the powder room from the kitchen is not something I would care for, and honestly some guests may not want to use it if the kitchen is full of people.

Mudroom area. The more convenient area for your family.

Mudroom area. The more convenient area for your family.

Mudroom area too. If you were in a hard-working farm house, well then, my answer would be different. But, those are your 2 choices, I'd do the one that works best for my family most of the time...

Also, post it up and you might get a genious solution from one of the great floorplanner/designer/photoshopping kind of people on here. :)

Where are you building in Alberta and what is your lot pocket size? I'm also in Alberta.

I will try to get a picture of that area of the house plan up

xc60: We are in Calgary. We have a full size inner city lot (48x120), of course we have setbacks to deal with. Are you building as well?

Hi Laura, we just finished building and have been in a week now. We are in Spruce Grove, I grew up in Calgary. I agree with posting your floor plan, everyone here is great at helping make them better.

mudroom. Mine is also off the mudroom. The 'mudroom' in my case is behind a pocket door from the kitchen, and it has an open area with lockers and a drop zone, then doors to the garage, laundry, powder room, and walk in coat closet, as well as stair access to the upper and lower levels of the home. I don't think that the area will be untidy for guests to go through, since the lockers have doors. Perhaps the drop zone has the highest potential for clutter but I would neaten that up for planned guests, and well, I don't really receive unplanned guests so I don't anticipate it to be an issue.

I would find it really uncomfortable personally to use the bathroom right off a main living area if I was in a friend's home.

Here is one option

Here is the second option

A third possibility is taking away a cubby and a 1/2 and moving the pocket door down, and hen flipping the door and vanity/toilet in the powder room. I don't think it makes sense to do that though, we are a family of four and hopefully soon one of five, so I really dont want to cut down our storage space for the sake of having the option to close off the mudroom.

You could put closed storage across from the powder room and put the lockers all closer to the back door with a little bit of reconfiguring.

I still prefer the pantry closer and the powder room tucked back after seeing the plan.

Laura, I'm also building inner city in Calgary!

I like the first option. Having guests take a few extra steps and see your lockers isn't a big deal. Most of your clutter is going to be in the closet anyway.

I have friends in Highland Park who have a similar setup. It's never occurred to me that I was walking through a private entry area. I've just considered it so practical to have the bathroom close to the door so you can make a quick stop before bundling the kids into their snowsuit.

I normally don't like guests to have to head to the garage to find the PR, but in your case, option 1 makes the most sense...but I don't think you'll need the pocket door...you won't be closing off the mudroom to co. if the PR is in there....

Yes Annie, if we do that option we will frame it as an entry into that area (it will go from hardwood to tiles as well), and not put in the pocket door.

Amber: Where in the city are you building? We are in Renfrew. We live there now and love it, our lots is actually just a couple doors down :) Who are you building with?

Same here! It's funny, because I consider this an American board. We're technically self-building. My BIL is the GC. He's built a few homes before.

We don't live in the area yet, but we've owned our lot for a year now. Have you applied for your DP yet? Do you have to demo an existing house?

Really, Renfrew? That's crazy, we'll be neighbours :)

We haven't submitted for our DP yet, probably within the next few weeks. We are going full DP though, so who knows how long it will take. We are lucky enough to have the furthest homes back on e street on ever side of us (note the sarcasm...), so we are hoping to be able to build a few feet forward from contextual. We do have an existing house to demo, just had it tested for asbestos yesterday, hopefully that comes back negative!

Are you building on a full size lot?

Our lot is an irregular shape, it's 35' at the front and 61' at the back. We wanted a big garage and smaller house, so it's perfect for us. We had to go discretionary as well due to the oversized garage and the height of the house.

The previous house was already torn down, so we don't have to deal with demo. Although DH has nightmares that they just pushed the house into the basement and covered it up with dirt. We won't know for sure until we get a building permit and start digging.

I assume your neighbours are the old bungalows? Is it a street with lots of previous infills already? We were only over height because the last 3 bungalows on the whole street are next to us. If any one of them get torn down and replaced with 2 2 stories, we'd be contextual on the height. So we argued that the city could let us build, or we could wait and let the neighbours continue to live with an empty lot that people are using to dump garbage. So you could argue that as the older homes are replaced, the neighbours will want to build closer to the street in order to maximize living space and still have a back yard? It might be harder if you're the first infill. We almost bought another house in Renfrew that would have been the first infill on the whole block (so even on the other side of the alley.) I imagine that would have been harder than where we are, where the neighbours are all either used to the construction, or newbies themselves. So glad that seller was greedy and wouldn't take our offer.

We got DP approval last week, pending some minor fixes to the drawings. Our architect didn't write "fireplace" on the bump out on the street view elevation drawing. So we have to get that fixed, and print out another 8 sets of drawings. Whee.

I'd love to see the rest of your plans. You should be able to send me an email through GW.

Yep post war 1.5 stories on either side. Thankfully we aren't the first new infill, and the others are much closer to a 6m setback (our contextual is 7.5m). We also know our neighbours and have spoken with both on either side of us who support pushing it forward, I plan on speaking to others as well seeing that will strengthen our case with the city.

Sounds like you have a lovely lot! Nice big yard :) ours is pretty average 48x120, but better than our current detached backyard and we can build a good size home with a perfect layout for our growing family (2 young busy boys!). We should definitely exchange plans, I 'd love to see what else is going up in the neighbourhood.

I don't want to post much more details on a public forum, so click on my name and you'll be able to send me an email.

Sent you an email Amber

My sister has a PR off the mud room. Not a bad location since people are not hanging out in the mudroom and therefore don't notice who's going in or out.

Your plan 1 seems to offer greater privacy as it's tucked on the other side of the pantry. Plan 2 appears to have a sightline to the kitchen...might feel a little weird for guests.

Thank you everyone for the insight, it seems off the powder room is the best option!

I can't reply to your email because you haven't allowed your email address to be shared with forum members. :) You'll have to send me another one with your address in it.