I would need a complete to scale floor plan of your house all windows , doorways where the doorways lead every measurement clearly marked posted here in a comment in jpeg format then we can see if this idea would work. I do not love walk in pantries and for sure not outside the kitchen work space . Mud rooms IMO need to be where the family enters the house all the time so usually right at the garage entry to the house . Many things need to be considered when doing a repurpose of spaces .Do you not need a DR ? There will be many questions here and all this dilemma should be dealt with here in comments so be prepared to do lots of reading and answering questions . I will say I personally wouldnever do a mud room at the front of my home

I think its a great idea. As long as the addition includes space for a table for eight. Your home should include a dedicated dining area. But with the amount of stuff we all have these days, a mud room and a pantry are soooooooo useful!

When we took on this house ten years ago, we took a portion of the TV room for a mud room. I don't know how we would live without it.

Thanks Patricia. The architect is coming to measure next week, so won’t have anything to scale for a bit. I am asking this now in order to get feedback on the overall idea.

Our garage is attached but does not have an entrance to the house, we come in through the front door. I think your note about not wanting it when you walk in is helpful (though there would be some sort of door) but definitely think it can be a lot. That said, we have a hall tree right now with all the coats and shoes etc right when you walk in anyways, this would just hide it better.

The dining area would either move to where our formal living room is today or between the kitchen and family room, so it’s all together.

Why do you not like walk in pantries? We have a lot going on, so having everything to hand seems easier to me

Need to see a floor plan, of course. But how long have you lived in this house - do you actually use the front door? The mudroom should be between the family entrance and the rest of the house.
I live in a center hall colonial but I pull into the garage and use the garage entrance; that’s where my mudroom is. There is actually a coat closet by the front door. But since only guests use the front door and they only have coats in the winter, it was not a good use of space. I turned that closet into my overflow pantry.

I have a center hall colonial.
Do you have a side entrance? That is where my mudroom is located. My location has both the side door and the garage door. Although small, it handles a lot.

Just saw your replied to Patricia.
Can you add a side door? Would that help?

Nj momma I’ve thought about it, and that could be an option, but we likely wouldn’t use it as much as we use the front door, as it leads directly to our driveway. There’s not a great way to add a side entrance unless it’s behind our garage, so wouldn’t be the path of least resistance and therefore less used

Adding a door from the garage into the house would be my #1 priority! Do you park in the garage, then exit the garage and go in the front door???

The garage is small, and we don’t park in it. Not sure we could reasonably fit our crv in it! It’s mostly storage now.

Pictures of the space would help.

These are pictures from the original listing, we have lived here 7 years so rooms are different now but hopefully this helps!

Having lived myself in an Essex Cty NJ center hall colonial I'm having a hard time visualizing the situation of your house and your proposed remodel. You say you always come in through the front door? All your guests as well? Is this a 1915-1925 house?

So you are thinking of basically flipping the classic layout by creating a main living space with a huge open plan kitchen-family room in the back of the house, and taking the two living room/dining room spaces in the front of the house and making them secondary in terms of time spent there -- a pantry/mudroom to the right and a formal dining room to the left?

Has the existing living room got a fireplace? If so, and you really like the idea of your remodel, I would still suggest that you fashion the formal dining room around the concept of a library just to add to the graciousness of first impressions coming through the front door.

Sorry -- I corrected my post to ask if the existing LIVING room has a fireplace...

I think she’s thinking of splitting that beautiful dining room into pantry and mudroom.
Now I’m thinking you should NOT do this. Reason is that it would be a dead-end mudroom - meaning, you’d enter in the front door, have to go into the mudroom to drop off stuff, then exit out the same entrance. It doesn’t sound difficult, but imagine a whole family. It would be more of a walk in closet by the door. I know I’d still kick off my shoes at the door.
So, i think you should put hooks/boot trays/ikea shoe cabinet on one of the walls of the dining room closest to the front door. Just as functional as your proposed mudroom, but you can tidy it up or remove the shoes if you have company.

Ahhh,,,, hmmmmm.

The pictures were being posted while I was typing,

If I had any idea of doing that I would make the mudroom the most beautiful mudroom area ever seen, and and have fantastic cabinetry for the pantry (to hide everything).

I had friends who put a very spacial family room/fancy kitchen open space addition onto the "back" of a 1920 side hall Colonial. It was a great gathering space but it was weird to walk into the front of house that had such a dead feeling. They didn't really re-purpose the front room off the front lawn and front entry. It had the feeling of a sitting parlor that nobody ever used. Too bad, becuase it got the most sun of anywhere in the house.

Yes the living room has a fireplace, and yes we only use the front door to come in. We are in a 1940s colonial in Bloomfield. Right now in the living room, next to the front door, we have a sort of hall tree that can hold coats and shoes and is fine, I just would love to not have to worry about it and be able to hide it more when guests arrive!

I think many have confirmed that this probably isn’t the best idea, which is why I posted to ask because something about hasn’t been totally sitting right with me, even though I like the idea in general, and wanted some second thoughts! It likely doesn’t work for the space / style of our home. The practicality of coming in and out of it as well makes me not want it, as I can only imagine how that will be as our kids gets older!

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^^^^^

Back wall of library sitting room.

Really love the faux library look!

I have to say if I felt it was a necessity to do something like repurposing a dining room to create a mudroom in the very front of the house, I would use it as an excuse to finally buy one of those circular sofas you see in hotel or movie lobbies that I always want to own and never have a place for anywhere I lived.

A combo of those beautiul faux library cabinets above and a circular sofa would at least be a lot of fun as a first impression and a great place to take off one's rain boots.

But I think that while it's probably inevitable that once you create that family space in the back half of the house and the front rooms get much less used, you still might not want to mess with the "expected" too much for people coming into the front door of the center hall. I would just try to make those rooms useful in other ways -- library or office. Create a music room. A more intimate cocktail space. Or just a very peaceful part of the house for anybody to enjoy away from the hubub.

If you post a loose plan just on grid paper so we can see the overall flow of the house and garage that would help. Im not understanding why the entry sequence from the garage (and away from the front door) can’t be improved upon with this addition you speak of.

PS: Even if you don't turn it into a "mudroom", maybe you could take what is now the dining room and put a really beautiful coat rack or huge hall tree in it, plus great upholstered bench for seating and then do the walls as like an art gallery, showing off great framed family photos, maybe all black and white?

That way you could have a true guest-greeting entry space, for taking off coats and hats and chatting, and a lovely goodbye space

Then for the old living room, do an eat-in library feel.

This is a 400K remodel for all of those ideas together. And it really ruins a classic center hall. You would be better off creating a car shelter, and a family entry, to the rear. Do not destroy the design integrity, or formality, of a very desirable form of home build.

I definitely don’t think it’s the way to go anymore! But wanted to have a gut check before I made a decision either way!

Here is the floor plan, obviously not to scale at all but gives you a general idea. Typical colonial.

Essentially we would expand the back half.

The other thought is that the closet in the living room could open to the garage / side of house, add a mud room / laundry room there and exit outside. We would love to put a small office or guest room behind the garage as well that could connect to this.

Here are the living room pics also from the original listing

What a beautiful home! Understand what you want and probably need but those bones are fabulous.

Yes, house looks in great shape. I will only add that additions had been made to the back of the CH colonial we bought -- a mudroom and a powder room, plus a bit of a kitchen expansion -- and they bumped out beyond the basement, and they got very very cold in the depths of winter despite some jerry-rigged heat being built into spaces. For anything like an office or guest room be sure to think about how you are going to keep it warm.

Thank you!! We love it. It does have great bones but we are outgrowing it! Hence the need for the addition, or we really need to move which we don’t want to do if we could avoid it

Alternative, if you worry that converting the dining room into a mud room would devalue your home, use portable furniture to make the mud room/pantry.

Of course, the pantry wouldn't be open to the kitchen, so it would be more of a long term storage pantry, for holiday dishes, crock pot, bread maker, back storage of flour, etc.

Set up the

mud room with store bought pieces like hall trees, benches benches, portable closets.

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Thanks Auntthelma. We have something like your first picture above but of course it makes it look a little messy with everything out. We may need to get something enclosed instead to hide the mess a bit more!

For what it's worth, I'm planning to turn my breakfast "nook" into a walk-in mudroom that is directly next to our front door. Like you, we don't park our car in our tiny garage. We always walk through the front door and can't live with a small overflowing entryway. We have 2 very young kids and I'm super excited about my future mudroom, even if it's not the most ideal.

Here's a thread that I started on my tiny mudroom.

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/6382575/mudroom-width-space-btwn-cabinets-and-wall

Wonderful house! what about making your DR work much harder?

I think you could run tall storage along the wall where the low buffett is pictured - it has the advantage of being pretty well hidden from the door and you could use that whole wall/corner (you could get gorgeous armoires or freestanding custom cabinetry for a fraction of what a potential reno would cost) - not sure what your current furniture is in the room, but there’s no rule that says the table has to always be centered, you could always offset it a bit if you needed more elbow room for storage

you could also replace two dining room chairs with a bench so it’s easy to plop down and change shoes

I live in an old house and I love her but sometimes it’s challenging to make the traditional layout work for a busy family

I love those 1920s/30s center hall colonials--I've lived in one for many years now. I would hate to see you ruin it by turning the dining room into a mud room and pantry :(

A friend of mine who lives in the same type of home added a large family room and kitchen addition to the back of her house. She added a very large walk-in closet off the center hall and a large laundry room/pantry off the kitchen. She still has a beautiful dining room, as well as an eat-in kitchen. You can most probably do a similar renovation and get what you want without losing the dining room. I'm sure a good architect will figure something out--just give him/her your wishes/ideas/goals and let him or her take it from there.

Felicia, my pics were just examples of store bought, non permanent solutions. of course you will want to shop and plan an arrangement that mimics a permanent change. The idea was that, if losing a dining room to a mud room is bad for the value of your house, as some have suggested, then just do it but in a way that can easily be undone in the future.

Well I am dying to see what you decided because I have a similar set up and had a designer here today about splitting the dining room up!