revisiting the mudroom

Back in February, Eric came up with yet another alternative for the mudroom shape to address my previous concerns. It took me until the end of March to comment on it properly! Here's a catchup on the email discussion:


Email from Eric (Feb 15)

Here's another idea for the mud room. It involves going ahead and letting it project out as sort of a bay window next to the main entry. If we liked the idea in principle, the actual shape could be refined and developed. What do you think?






My comments (Mar 29)

Overall I really like the concept, and it's a hell of a lot better than
messing with the pantry position etc. (although at some stage I still want to get a better feel for the kitchen layout, but that's separate). In no particular order, these are my comments:

I don't like how the mudroom isn't symmetrical anymore, it has the corner cut off one side. I would rather make it a square wall without the diagonal bit.

Where you have marked as Coats in the new bit, I'd like instead to call it a cupboard... like you had in the original version way back when. Maybe it will be for coats, but more likely will end up being for all that cleaning stuff - shoe polish, brooms, blah blah blah that feels like it should belong in / near the mudroom. Maybe there will be space in the waist height units in mudroom proper but who knows. I'm envisaging instead that there will be hooks for coats in the entrance hall bit along the mudroom wall, and we could also have hooks on the wall in mudroom for messier things, behind the door.

I liked the stairs a lot in your first version coming up onto the verandah with matching curved handrails on either side. I don't like there being handrail only on one side and that it is curved if the other side is straight... Ideally I'd like to be able to have both sides curved, but that's not possible unless it moves over so it's not opposite the door (which would I think feel odd) OR perhaps the verandah base could extend out further? So that it comes out to be level with how far the new bay bit juts out? Now, I know that might mess up the amount of sunlight going in on that side? If so, perhaps could have the base of the verandah jutting out but the roof staying back? We could for instance then use the bit that isn't undercover as being for plants in pots... (cacti etc?) Not sure how it would look but it's an idea to throw out there.

Now, onto the Projection view...

One of the things I liked most in the first version was how you had the sequence of 5 small square windows on this side... I would like to get back to that. Perhaps we could just have one square window in the middle of the mudroom bay of the same shape as the others to get it back? We could still have windows on either side of the bay to let more light in but without spoiling the symmetry?

I really like the way you have moved the triangular bit (gable?) on the roof over to be above the bay area rather than above the entrance door. I like this better than the way it was originally even because it is more symmetrical. I also like how it is shingles (I loved the sunburst motif thing too but we still have that about the breakfast area side, so happy to have something different).