Laundry Room Addition
One Small Addition = One Big Impact
The home they loved, with one nagging flaw
David and his wife loved their house. It was the classic suburban home — comfortable, familiar, the place they'd built their life around. But it had a short list of frustrations they'd lived with for years: no pantry, no mudroom, and laundry stranded all the way down in the basement.
For a long time, those were just quirks. Then they started planning for retirement — and the calculus changed. The last thing they wanted in their later years was a flight of basement stairs standing between them and a load of laundry.
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As simple as the project sounds, there is a lot involved. Ellen listened to my wife’s concerns and ideas on the project. Together we achieved a very efficient design.
A small move that fixed the whole flow
The solution sounds simple, but as David put it, there was a lot involved.
We pushed the garage forward eight feet. That single move opened up the footprint for a combined laundry room, mudroom, and pantry — the three things the house had always been missing — without disrupting the rooms the owners already loved.
Designed for the years ahead
What looks like a modest addition is really an age-in-place strategy. By bringing daily essentials up out of the basement, the design takes the stairs out of the equation — laundry, storage, and the everyday coming-and-going of a mudroom, all on the main level where the owners actually live.
The result is a home that works with them as they get older, not against them. The same house they've always loved, just easier to live in for the long haul.
