The mud room at my home, Cypress.
Okay, okay!! I know I will sound like a raving sexist here in this post but you ladies will either publicly or privately have to agree with me!
Where do all these male architects, builders, developers, and such put all of their myriad of stuff when they come home???
I betcha my designer dollar they end up in the kitchen on a counter or in a tiny, tiny laundry pass through from the garage into the house.
Okay, okay, so maybe he’s married to an angel who takes all his personal stuff and mail and coat and shoes and dutifully puts it all away. But then, if you have kids, where does all their stuff go like backpacks, shoes, lunch boxes, coats, and sports equipment?
I know already!
It either gets dumped inside the “laundry room” (which in most homes today is another joke) or on a kitchen counter or somewhere else equally as inconvenient for the momma of the house .
I know all of this why? Because I have had this impossible layout in our home when our kids were growing up. I have seen this in 2000 square foot homes up to a home I just saw in a high end residential neighbor of a 4500 square foot home…no difference!!
Seriously?
Can we not do better?
Can we not demand better?
Stress today is at an all-time, off-the-charts level and the poor mother or wife or both that before she can even deal with what’s for dinner or who goes where next in car pooling, she has this visual clutter in front of her causing her either a known or unknown stress, but it does cause stress.
Remember form follows function?
Where oh where is the function of these homes of say the last 30 -40 years that have eliminated the almost sacred to women, mud room?
Or at least have a laundry / mud room combo that has lockers or more counters or an open closet or something besides a washer, dryer, sink, and little bitty counter and sink when walking in from the garage.
In my book in chapter one on spaces, I go into what is needed on functioning of homes today.
So when I talk of a housing revolution, here is where to start.
Bring back the mud room!
For more lovely mud rooms check out my “Inspiring Mud Rooms” board on Pinterest: