My friend did this. Pantry directly off kitchen, and laundry/mud room just a step past that. It's fantastic. Sorry no pictures. The pantry can close, although she never closes it as it's a private corridor. The laundry near the kitchen is fantastically convenient and I envy it. The kid can come home, take off his yucky sports clothes and stick them in the laundry. If you can do this, I highly recommend it.

I've got that set up. Glass-pane door goes into laundry room (access to garage).

The shelves are steps from the kitchen and hold a ton. Broom/utility closet plus upper storage for bulk items on the right.

Busiest room in the house. And like Pirula said. My only regret is not extending this room 10 feet into the garage and building in an ironing and mending center when we expanded the driveway. I had 24" of additional space and threw a wine fridge in there.

Glad I did but another bank of drawers would have been great too. Can't have too many drawers in a room like this. Cabinets are ikea. Uppers handle china and flower vase overflow plus laundry items.

This post was edited by rococogurl on Sun, Jun 2, 13 at 14:19

THank you for your responses!

rococogurl--what a great space! Thank you for posting pics-it's so much easier to see how things will work in real life. Love the IKEA cabinets. Wine fridge in the laundry would be very tempting...is the backplash in the laundry painted beadboard?

We just installed a 4x4 closet in the mud/laundry room that we use for all the things you mentioned. I'm not going to take a picture -- the closet isn't that well organized, and I'm doing laundry right now! The room is adjacent to the kitchen, so the location is just right. It is also right inside the garage, so easy for unloading groceries.

DH was done with spending money by the end of this project, so we just go some shelving units from Ikea for in the closet. I would like to put in better shelving to improve organization... some day. But, despite that, it does work pretty well, I just struggle getting to items in the corners.

I have a pull-out pantry in the actual kitchen as well, for those daily use items like oils, vinegars, peanut butter, breads and cereal and a few condiments that don't need to be refrigerated. That keeps me from running to the adjacent room for every little thing.

What I love is actually having the space to buy quantities of items when on sale or at Costco without having to stash stuff in the basement.

My mud room/laundry space isn't nearly as big as Rococo girl's, but we had nothing before... just having a place for DS's hockey gear is a blessing! LOL!

Anne, it is indeed painted beadboard. There's a b&a story about that. Afterwards I had to change out the washer/dryer. Eventually will replace the original white outlets & switches with black but waiting to do other electrical work in the house.

Wine fridge works well there -- out of the way. At the time we were only living here vacations and weekends so I was more focused on entertaining than on basics needed now.

But if there's an option for building & knocking out walls, I say go for a really big laundry/mudroom. I easily could use double the space and a huge closet for all our shoes, exercise gear, indoor/outdoor clothes and jackets -- stuff I grab as I run out to the car that isn't convenient upstairs.

Here is a link that might be useful: B&A

Rococogurl--thanks for the link and additional info! What a cool feature story! Sounds like we are in a similar situaiton. The house I'm working on is a vacation home right, but ultimately will be where we move (if all goes well). This will be a smaller house, so space planning is important. DH envisions us just getting rid of everything, and just have the basics--which is great for a vacation home--but not totally realistic either. He rolls his eyes when I talk about places to store platters and vases.

I love the combination of the stainless with the beadboard. Painted beadbard is so forgiving--I wish my laundry in my current house was wrapped in it.

In the kitchen we're in the processing of redoing, I put the IKEA stainless cabs in the island, wood cabs on the rest. I think the sleek look of those with the beadboard (particuarly painted black) is a different, and very cool look!

Control Freak--You are confirming what I am thinking. In my current kitchen, which is pretty big, I have two pullout pantries, but for bulk items like paper towels, tp, dog food, etc, I store them in a closet under the stairs. And I bang the crap out of my head every time (the door is fullsize, but the stairs drop into the closet. I want a different solution this time!

Thanks for the input and ideas!