Please help me brainstorm

[Pilsy]

I’m having deja vu, so please forgive me if I’ve posted about this before. It’s been in my mind for a long time.

I really want a mud room, but I’m struggling with how to add one to our home sensibly. My existing kitchen is about 11’ x 11’, and I think that space would work great (and we would turn our adjacent keeping and dining rooms into the new kitchen), but it has no direct access from the garage, which is a must-have in my mind. Currently, we either exit the garage and walk a few feet before coming up the back steps and into the kitchen or go from inside the garage down a set of stairs into the basement and then upstairs into our keeping room. The latter is great if the weather is absolutely horrid, but it’s really not practical most of the time.

Do you have any creative ideas for how I can either enclose the area where my garage access and back steps are now or otherwise add garage access to the now-kitchen/would-be mud room? I have to preserve the stairs that run from the basement to the garage, so that limits me on what I can do along that back wall of the garage that’s shared with the kitchen/would-be mud room.

The contractor who did our bathroom renovations told me the roof lines are an issue, but two architects have told me that’s nonsense. I do plan to hire an architect, but I prefer to have more direction before making the investment. We are also planning a basement renovation, and I need to find space for my office somewhere in all this. My mom suggested I use the existing kitchen for both a mud room and small office, but that seems too tight to me.

If you got this far, thanks for any thoughts you can share!

[Pilsy]

[nicolewi]

Wait, so is the red door the door from the garage? And then you walk on that brick area and up the stairs to the main house?

I'm confused about the layout, but just asking anyway...I am assuming there is not a way to cut a new door somewhere through the garage wall so that it would enter into the main house??

[simpsongal]

I think I see it, the garage stairs are located where you would ideally have access into the house. Right? If you don't need those stairs often, could you put like a trap door over them and create the entry into the house? That might sound nutty, but I saw the trap door over the stair on an episode of Hilary's new HGTV show.

The other option would be to build a portico/peak coming off your roof line and encasing that other entry into the house. That would likely be $$$ b/c you need foundation/footings, and stairs to the patio and yard. So a lot of work for a little house access. Oof....tough one!

[aprilsails]

I drew a very sketchy sketch, does this look right?

[aprilsails]

If there’s enough headroom above the stairs to the basement, which there should be, you can create a landing on the green square, and extend steps down to the right which shouldn’t reduce your parking space. The landing is required by code now and sucks.

This is obviously assuming you are ripping out your kitchen cabinets or whatever you have to obtain an interior entry.

[Pilsy]

Yes, simpsongal and aprilsails! 

There is a space behind the stairs where I could create access to the kitchen, but it’s inaccessible if the cars are in the garage. I tried to indicate the general area with arrows on these pics.

I’m intrigued by the trap door idea! We have no other exterior entry to the basement (no bulkhead, for example), so we don’t want to be rid of the garage/basement stairs, but we don’t need to use them often. Off to Google.

Thank you!

[Pilsy]

Jan 5, 2022 13:10:33 GMT -5 nicolewi said:

Wait, so is the red door the door from the garage? And then you walk on that brick area and up the stairs to the main house?

Right! 

[Pilsy]

Jan 5, 2022 13:36:38 GMT -5 aprilsails said:

If there’s enough headroom above the stairs to the basement, which there should be, you can create a landing on the green square, and extend steps down to the right which shouldn’t reduce your parking space. The landing is required by code now and sucks.

This is obviously assuming you are ripping out your kitchen cabinets or whatever you have to obtain an interior entry.

I love this! My only concern is, the garage is so tight when the cars are in there, I don't know if it's practical. I should have mentioned this earlier. 

I've actually considered lengthening the garage to get around this. Is that even a thing? We don't really have the option of widening the garage, as the roof is slanted on one side and the side without a height issue is too close to the well to be extended. We do have room to lengthen. I wonder how expensive that is. 

[aprilsails]

Could you extend the garage out in the direction of the garage doors so you would have additional space to maneuver around the cars? That might be cheaper than other option.

Lol Pilsy, I hadn’t read your latest reply.

Yes, if you have space, you could absolutely extend the face of the garage. It won’t necessarily be cheap, but any other options I can think of involve doing a whole pile of roof and joist modifications, which would also not be cheap.

[Pilsy]

Jan 5, 2022 13:58:16 GMT -5 aprilsails said:

Could you extend the garage out in the direction of the garage doors so you would have additional space to maneuver around the cars? That might be cheaper than other option.

Yes! Based on our property survey and town bylaws, I have about 11 feet to play with in that direction. I probably wouldn't use the whole 11, in part because I think it could make turning into the garage tough, but I think even 4 or 5 feet would be good. 

I desperately wish I could widen it, too - or at least get a wider door - but we did widen the door when we did other renovations about 8 years ago, and I think we're at the widest door our structure can accommodate. I'll have to check on that. If we had smaller cars, it would be fine, but we have a minivan and a compact SUV, so we often only park one inside unless it's going to snow and we need to clear the driveway for plowing. 

[Pilsy]

Thanks for thinking through this with me!

[simpsongal]

If the landing would work, I like that idea (not sure there's enough headroom, but like maybe?). I have a feeling the exterior addition is the going to be the most expensive option, and honestly I like the back w/the red door and brick, it's cute and an addition may look imposing, like a weird add on.

You've got some great hanging-wall space in the stair area you can utilize

[Pilsy]

Jan 5, 2022 14:09:23 GMT -5 simpsongal said:

You've got some great hanging-wall space in the stair area you can utilize

Soon, you'll see that stair area in the "favorite room of the house" thread on ML.

[ellipses84]

Having a door from the garage to the kitchen / mud room would be a huge priority for me, more than having a stair to the basement. You may use the garage door multiple times a day, way more often than the stairs. What is down there and where are the other stairs? Could reconfiguring the mud room and kitchen make it easier to get from the garage to the other stairs?

If you can’t get the door from the garage, another option is to create an outdoor structure around the exterior doors and steps to protect from the rain. That could be challenging since your garage roof is so low. It might have to be higher and it would be a focal point so you’d want it to look very intentional and cohesive.

[af1212]

Jan 6, 2022 4:26:53 GMT -5 ellipses84 said:

Having a door from the garage to the kitchen / mud room would be a huge priority for me, more than having a stair to the basement. You may use the garage door multiple times a day, way more often than the stairs. What is down there and where are the other stairs? Could reconfiguring the mud room and kitchen make it easier to get from the garage to the other stairs?

If you can’t get the door from the garage, another option is to create an outdoor structure around the exterior doors and steps to protect from the rain. That could be challenging since your garage roof is so low. It might have to be higher and it would be a focal point so you’d want it to look very intentional and cohesive.

How would she access her basement without stairs?

[mccallister84]

Jan 6, 2022 7:10:21 GMT -5 af1212 said:

Jan 6, 2022 4:26:53 GMT -5 ellipses84 said:

Having a door from the garage to the kitchen / mud room would be a huge priority for me, more than having a stair to the basement. You may use the garage door multiple times a day, way more often than the stairs. What is down there and where are the other stairs? Could reconfiguring the mud room and kitchen make it easier to get from the garage to the other stairs?

If you can’t get the door from the garage, another option is to create an outdoor structure around the exterior doors and steps to protect from the rain. That could be challenging since your garage roof is so low. It might have to be higher and it would be a focal point so you’d want it to look very intentional and cohesive.

How would she access her basement without stairs?

From the OP she says she goes down the garage stairs and then up stairs to her keeping room. I would also ditch the garage stairs but the OP did say she wanted to keep them.

[simpsongal]

Jan 6, 2022 7:54:28 GMT -5 mccallister84 said:

Jan 6, 2022 7:10:21 GMT -5 af1212 said:

How would she access her basement without stairs?

From the OP she says she goes down the garage stairs and then up stairs to her keeping room. I would also ditch the garage stairs but the OP did say she wanted to keep them.     

Good point!  Put me on team eliminate the garage staircase if there's a second one in the house. 

[Pilsy]

Jan 6, 2022 4:26:53 GMT -5 ellipses84 said:

What is down there and where are the other stairs? Could reconfiguring the mud room and kitchen make it easier to get from the garage to the other stairs?

Good question. Half the basement is finished and going to be a playroom soon. There is a set of stairs ending in that part that leads up to the keeping room, which will be part of the kitchen if we ever get going on renovations. The other half of the basement is unfinished and serves as a pantry, general storage, laundry area and also includes an extra freezer, a water tank, and our oil tank. 

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to lose one set of stairs. We tend to put some of our recycling in the unfinished part before it goes to the garage, and it's nice to be able to take it right out from the basement once it feels kind of dirty and more like trash. But if we never put it in the basement and just took it out through our new mud room, that would also work.  I have also assumed we need two points of egress, but maybe that's not necessary. 

I should have included a sketch originally. I'll add one. 

[Pilsy]

[ellipses84]

Jan 6, 2022 10:20:05 GMT -5 Pilsy said:

Jan 6, 2022 4:26:53 GMT -5 ellipses84 said:

What is down there and where are the other stairs? Could reconfiguring the mud room and kitchen make it easier to get from the garage to the other stairs?

Good question. Half the basement is finished and going to be a playroom soon. There is a set of stairs ending in that part that leads up to the keeping room, which will be part of the kitchen if we ever get going on renovations. The other half of the basement is unfinished and serves as a pantry, general storage, laundry area and also includes an extra freezer, a water tank, and our oil tank. 

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to lose one set of stairs. We tend to put some of our recycling in the unfinished part before it goes to the garage, and it's nice to be able to take it right out from the basement once it feels kind of dirty and more like trash. But if we never put it in the basement and just took it out through our new mud room, that would also work.  I have also assumed we need two points of egress, but maybe that's not necessary. 

I should have included a sketch originally. I'll add one. 

It is best to have 2 points of egress. Many basements don’t because they were built a long time ago and there are ways to retrofit a dug out window rather than a full set of stairs for the secondary egresss. IDK what your local codes require. I’m assuming there’s a door at the bottom of your garage stair but the access through the garage or type of door might not be up to code either (which is fine if it was built before the code required it). Seeing the plan is so helpful! I think you should extend the garage because that would be more functional for you anyways and allow you to keep the stairs and add a door to the mud room.

[mrsukyankee]

It's a shame you aren't starting anew with a good budget for renovation. Since you have 3 rooms for hanging out in - rec room, family room and living room, I'd move the kitchen to the family room and then use the current kitchen as the entry/laundry room.