Most people have heard of Houzz and Pinterest but one of my favorite sources of ideas and advice has actually been a forum which Houzz just purchased (GardenWeb).  I know what you’re thinking…GardenWeb?  Really?  Yes, really!  They have an entire forum dedicated to “Building a Home”.  Since Houzz just acquired GardenWeb all of Houzz’s great photos and all of GardenWeb’s great advice are now in one spot.  Love it!

The forum has been great to learn from other’s mistakes as well as get advice.  I FINALLY decided to see if anyone had feedback on our house plan.  Yeah, yeah, a little late since it’s been about a YEAR since our plans have been finalized, but better late than never, right?  Overwhelmingly, people commented on the location of our powder room and how inconvenient it is if our boys are playing outside and need to get to the bathroom from the mudroom.  And they’re right!  Check out the map below of how the boys would need to get to the powder room from the mudroom.

Trek from where the boys play outside to get to the powder room.

Although it’s easy access from the front door – I’d really like the boys to enter through the mudroom and keep their dirty shoes in there.  In which case the powder room is super far from the mudroom.  At one point we had a bathroom near the mudroom but over the year of design revisions we moved it and I never really thought of its location compared to the mudroom.

So, I spent some time to reconfigure the mudroom and I squeezed in a ½ bath!  Yep, ANOTHER bathroom in the house.  This now means there will be 5 toilets that have to be cleaned…ugh.  But it’s better than having the boys trek dirt in from outside all through the main level.  And this way there will be a sink in the mudroom where they can wash their hands when they’re home from school.  And since our little one, Spencer, will only be 5 by the time we are done with construction, I can keep a step stool in there for him to wash up before dinner.  Adding the ½ bath is really a big benefit and I’m so happy that we added it in.

Check out the before and after plans of the mudroom below.  To add in the ½ bath I had to straighten out the wall between the garage and the mudroom (which we did have to run by our structural engineer since it was a shear wall).  This allowed me to add the bath in the upper corner as well as give it a window.  I did lose a bit of floor space which likely means that the dog bed will be placed underneath the desk area, and I’m ok with that.  Small loss for a big benefit.  Also a benefit is that building the straight wall is easier than the original layout – bonus!

Original mudroom layout.

New mudroom layout with the 1/2 bath.

Needless to say I’m super thankful that I posted our plans to Houzz’s new forum!  If you’re looking to build or remodel, you should definitely check it out for some advice.