This episode is a little different than my typical episode … it’s more of a personal explanation of my top floor plan regret that I have for my own custom designed home.
Although this is a personal story about my own home build experience, I know it will help many of you out there who are toying with the idea of doing what I did (and now regret).
Ready to confidently build a house that you absolutely LOVE and is perfect for YOUR family (now + into the future) … without blowing your budget? Learn how in my *FREE* masterclass! Grab your (virtual) seat here!
MY TOP FLOOR PLAN REGRET
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Podcast Episode Transcript:
This episode is a little different than my typical episode … it’s more of a personal explanation of my top floor plan regret that I have for my own custom designed home.
Although this is a personal story about my own home build experience, I know it will help many of you out there who are toying with the idea of doing what I did (and now regret).
Welcome to the BEFORE YOU BUILD℠ podcast. I’m your host, Carrie Barker (aka, Caroline on Design), and today, in episode 73, I’m sharing the number one thing I wish I had done differently when designing my custom floor plan.
Before we go any further, I have to tell you that overall, I LOVE my custom floor plan, and I have VERY few regrets … really almost none … and we’ve been in our house for eleven years (as of next week).
However, there is ONE thing (about my house layout) that does drive me a little insane at times, and I’m sharing it so that I can help YOU avoid making the same floor plan (quote) ‘mistake’ that I made.
Well, it’s not really a mistake, but it is annoying at times.
MY BIGGEST CUSTOM FLOOR PLAN REGRET
My number one floor plan regret is combining my mudroom and laundry room into one space.
Now … this wasn’t always an issue for us, but has consistently become more of an issue over the years.
So, let me take you back a few years … back when I used to post photos of my home all over Instagram, and every once in awhile, I’d get some pretty snarky remarks. Normally I just overlook them, but one comment stood to me.
Someone commented (in response to a photo of my combined mudroom/laundry room) that she couldn’t understand why anyone would combine these two rooms. Her argument was, ‘one room is meant for dirty shoes and the other room is meant for clean and tidy clothes’.
This is very true. She certainly had a point.
Yet at the time I didn’t necessarily agree with her that these rooms should be separated.
Sometimes it’s a space or square footage issue and you have no choice but to combine these rooms.
That’s actually why I did this very thing (i.e. it’s why I combined my mudroom and laundry room) when creating my own custom floor plan.
So at the time, it really didn’t bother me to have the rooms combined.
However, over the years, combining my mudroom and laundry room has turned into my top floor plan regret.
This combined space isn’t terrible. It’s actually a very nice room.
I just realized over time that it isn’t a functional layout for MY family.
THIS BECAME A PROBLEM OVER TIME
Honestly, my combined mudroom/laundry room wasn’t a problem for the first six or seven years living in our home. For some reason, it didn’t bother me to have clean and dirty in the same room. (which is really crazy if you know me in real life … I like things tidy)
As my girls got older (and taller and everything got bigger), I just got fed up, and I wish I had dedicated rooms for my laundry and mud area.
When we built our house, our girls were little (they were 3 and 5 … and so stinkin’ cute!), and all of their stuff was little.
We had little pre-school backpacks, little kid shoes (that fit perfectly in our shoe drawers), little tiny coats, and a little stuffed animal or two thrown into their cubbies.
Now my daughters are 17 and 15, and they have LOTS of large shoes (my oldest wears a size 12), large school backpacks stuffed full of Macbooks and binders, large travel volleyball backpacks, large coats, belt bags all over … and it’s all stuffed in that room.
Their stuff no longer fits perfectly into their cubbies.
As my girls got older (and MUCH taller), their stuff got bigger. There just isn’t enough room in their cubbies anymore so things trickle out into the laundry side of the room.
We have shoes all over the floor of our mudroom (from all four of us), so it’s like a game of dodging landmines when you walk through that room.
Also, we are SO much busier now that the girls are older and do travel volleyball and school is a full-time deal (unlike pre-school when we built).
The last thing on my mind after driving to volleyball practice or spending a weekend at a tournament is to clean our mudroom/laundry room. It’s not happening! It’s literally never clean.
WE STILL HAVE LAUNDRY TO DO
On top of the fact that we have shoes all over the floor and stuff everywhere, we also need to do laundry in this room.
With four people (and a dirty little supermodel dog), we constantly have a stream of laundry going.
There are piles to be folded, plus most of our clothes need to be airdried, so there’s always at least one or two drying racks set up and full of clothes.
It’s the hardest working area in our home, and it’s just too cramped at this point for it to function well.
Psst … I took these photos on a non-laundry day, so this room is actually cleaner than normal. Hard to believe!
THE ‘REAL’ ISSUE
Here’s the reality … it isn’t the fact that we have dirty and clean in the same room that’s an issue for me.
It’s the fact that we don’t have enough space for all of our stuff to fit nicely into this combined mud/laundry room.
I will 99.9% separate my mudroom and laundry room when we build our next home, but for now, I’ll doing my best to find beauty in the chaos that is our insanely busy life with teenage daughters.
This chaos is VERY evident in the way our mudroom/laundry room looks ALL. THE. TIME.
As much as I’m excited to plan out the most perfect (separated) mudroom and laundry room for our next home, it also makes me incredibly sad because I know our future home won’t have our current chaos.
The girls will be older and out of the house. I might actually miss the shoes littering the floor and the backpacks spilling out into the laundry side of the room. *Gasp* Did I really say that?!
When I built this house, I had no idea my little 5-year-old daughter would end up being over 6′ tall and wearing size 11/12 shoes. If I had known that, I would have made our shoe drawers much larger :).
The moral of this long ‘story’ … plan your home for now and also for your family in the future.
If you want to dive deep into thinking about the perfect floor plan for YOUR family, I invite you to download my *FREE* Floor Plan Creation Questionnaire.
This guided questionnaire includes over 20 questions that will help you truly consider your family’s needs (both current and future) so that you end up with a home layout that is designed perfectly for YOUR family :).
WHAT IF I DON’T HAVE SPACE TO SEPARATE THE ROOMS?
Now … I want to tell you another piece of advice I gave to one of my BEFORE YOU BUILD℠ members the other day, who is currently designing her floor plan.
She and her husband are empty nesters, and they don’t have space in their house to have separate laundry and mud rooms.
She was a little concerned because she knew I regretted combining these rooms so much.
My advice to her was that it’s her home, and she can do whatever she wants. (That’s my mantra … this is YOUR home, and YOU get to decide what the perfect home is for YOU.)
Also, I reminded her that she won’t have the chaos of kids living in the house every day. It’s just her and her husband and they can keep the space neat and tidy (unlike a busy family in the thick of the teenage years like my family).
FREE FLOOR PLAN QUESTIONNAIRE
So, again … you are designing YOUR home for YOUR family.
Just because my top floor plan regret is combining my mudroom and laundry room, it doesn’t mean that will be an issue for you.
Design your home for YOUR family!
Take my advice and take others’ advice, but remember that the ultimate decision of what’s best for YOUR family is up to you.
Grab a copy of my *FREE* Floor Plan Creation Questionnaire and dive deep into thinking about the perfect floor plan for YOUR family.
This guided questionnaire includes over 20 questions that will help you truly consider your family’s needs (both current and future) so that you end up with a home layout that is designed perfectly for YOUR family :).
Seems like lots of room and storage to me. but could use some organization…maybe some designated cabinets for each.
What if you took the drawers out and stored them elsewhere for the time being. The shoes could go into that space & get off your floor.