The major topic of conversation everywhere is snow. It promises to be a great water year for spring gardening, but for now, we are living with the melting white stuff. No matter how much a person can try to comply with shrieks to wipe your feet, it’s near impossible to not leave a trail. Mudrooms are home designers’ solutions for not tracking in wet snow and storing boots, gloves, coats and winter gear.
The Park City home featured above has a spacious family entry off the garage with sleek accommodations for the weather. Architect Scott Jaffa (Jaffa Group Design Build, Park City) has a personal philosophy that the important role family entrances serve should be honored and addressed by design. His point is that coming in from the garage, it is the first space that says home and it should be welcoming and comfortable with the same level of design as the rest of the house. Here the home by Jaffa and interior designer Kristen Rocke (K Rocke Design, Salt Lake City) walls are filled with windows for natural light and art with benches beneath for convenient seating and storage along the interior wall. The ceramic floors are easy to clean, as is the durable area rug.
In this shoe-free home designed by architect Solim Gasparik (4 C Design, Park City), the front entry floor is polished tile. Shoes are left there, and guests step up to the wood floors. Inside the closet door at the far end is a water spigot and hose for hosing off the floor.
The garage entry of the same home has built-in cabinetry without hardware to store equipment and a bench for removing shoes and hanging coats.
The slosh season is short-lived, and this Park City home designed by Jenny Samuelson, (J Squared Design) demonstrates a temporary solution in a hallway with drip tray, bench, pegboard, and wire storage bin.
For the garage entrance of a slightly more formal home in Midway, the design provides seating with a padded bench, storage in bins beneath the benches to reduce clutter, coat hooks with hanging decorative pieces, a cabinet for more hidden storage, and a mirror for a final check before leaving the home. (Home by Lane Myers Construction, Sandy)
The last four shots come from a Park City home innovatively remodeled by Park City architect Steve Stanton with design collaboration from his wife, Kathy Stanton. The main entry (above) has a notch for a built-in bench and various sized yellow pegs for coats. Without coats and boots in the summer season, the pegs look decorative above the sleek bench.
There was limited space inside off the garage entrance, so the Stantons innovated one in the garage in a demonstration of a great way to find new space.
Storage for seasonal sports items was recovered in the stairway design. Metal panels form the wall between the staircase with cuts for the wooden frame beneath the stairs. The floor continues on-grade from the outside entrance and stairs lead down to the garage entrance. The wooden floor where the grade separates serves as a bench, and pegs add convenience.
The pull out drawer offers an indication of how much storage the stairway design affords.
In photographing these projects, I became impressed by how many solutions creative people found for a simple but universal problem.
See more of Scot’s Photo Friday work here!Â
