Software
Houzz Logo Print
mph1322

Help with floorplan / laundry & kitchen

3 years ago
last modified: 3 years ago

We've lived in our house for almost seven years and love the neighborhood, etc -- except our floorplan is terrible, and we're really feeling the pain with two young kids. It's an early 90's Colonial.

We are looking to:

1) Move the laundry out of the hallway from the garage -- but where could it go? I would love it upstairs, but I'm not sure if that's possible without exorbitant costs. We really need a mudroom/drop zone off the garage b/c we park both cars in there. All the shoes and backpacks end up right in the middle of the kitchen, or I walk over to the dining room and drop stuff there.

2) Renovate the kitchen eventually. Since we imagine this will be super costly, we're hoping we can deal with the laundry now and at least gain some functionality. We are not attached to having a formal dining room, as long as we can sometimes fit 6 people in the kitchen. (For now, we've done paint, light fixtures and hardware).

We could spend about $30k on the laundry now and about $100k on the kitchen later. Or, if you tell me that's not nearly enough, we can wait longer on the kitchen. We plan to stay here as long as possible. We're in a medium cost of living area with a hot real estate market.

We've loved living here, but I think the builder/architect was perhaps drinking when they designed this place. Please help, and let me know if you need more photos or info! Thanks in advance.







Edited to say that the kitchen is no longer green, at least -- updated pics below :)

Comments (9)

  • 3 years ago
    last modified: 3 years ago

    Too bad that neither of the bonus room closets are on the same wall as any of the upstairs bathrooms but it might be possible to see if you can get a straight water run up into either of them. It might be worth consulting with a plumber to see if this is an option. I would kill for an upstairs laundry.

    as an aside

    When my mom had trouble going up and down from the original basement laundry, my dad moved it to the entry coat closet. He put in a stackable so part of the closet could still be used for coats. I don't know if this is an option for you but it would at least get it closer to the upstairs and plumbing would be accessible from the basement.

    Unfortunately, it would not give you a laundry area just a washer and dryer on the first floor.

    mph1322 thanked Sherry Brighton
  • 3 years ago

    The kids bedroom1 looks like a good place to expand the bathroom and add a laundry because you have the plumbing along that wall. i mention expanding the bathroom because one sink with a small counter for two kids never seems to be enough space as they grow older. then you could create the bedroom in that large extra room.

    mph1322 thanked Andrea
  • 3 years ago
    last modified: 3 years ago

    Thank you for these comments! To answer a few questions/comments:

    --There is indeed a powder room downstairs; it's under the staircase

    --I do think kid 1's closet is sitting roughly above the current washer & dryer. Annoyingly, there's a column in the back corner of the closet that's about 17"x11". I believe it's some sort of HVAC return.

    --We did paint, hardware and lighting in the kitchen several years ago. The green walls were from the previous owner and just awful :) Pics of current state below -- sorry, should've included these above.







  • 3 years ago

    I think it would be worth your while to work with an interior designer to do a long range plan for your house.

  • 3 years ago

    @cpartist Indeed!

  • 3 years ago

    We have a relatively similar setup although the pantry doesn’t eat up most of our kitchen. We did move a W/D upstairs (converted a closet) and it was not super expensive at the time and very worth it. Our garage is not as deep of yours and it was previously built out as a laundry space. We moved the door all the way down and converted it to a mudroom. The garage is a little shallow but fits our minivan fine. Can you consider taking that? I am not sure you could get more than a one wall mudroom but if it flowed it should add function! pictures below.


    We have a second W/D that we stacked here as well. You could stack yours and get a little space back.





    mph1322 thanked sarahsaccount24
  • 3 years ago
    last modified: 3 years ago

    Here is the layout. The bottom edge runs almost the entire length of the garage (there is a half bath on thr right of the door that spans the depth of the mudroom). So if you can park your cars in a shallower space you might be able to work something similar.


    The rest of our first floor layout is nearly identical and this flows well from mudroom.


    mph1322 thanked sarahsaccount24
  • 3 years ago

    @sarahsaccount24, Thank you so much for this great idea! I do think something like this could work. The back of our garage is pretty deep and sort of dead space except for a chest freezer. Even having one big wall of mudroom would be amazing. If you're okay with it I'll send you a message with more questions. Thank you again!!