Anonymous wrote:Most people in DC live in rowhouses without mudrooms and are fine. You can have hooks on the wall and move the coats to a closet elsewhere in the house.

True. Although we added a garage to our DC rowhouse, with a laundry/mud room that you walk through on the basement level. We also built a coat closet next to the stairs near the front door, and built a tiny powder room on the other side. We also put up a hook rack with a mirror over it right near the front door.

In our new place, having room for a place to hang coats, and store backpacks, mittens/hats/scarves, and shoes (we try to be a shoeless home) is a must. A mud room area even if it isn't a separate room. We still haven't built this feature yet but we have a place to do it near the back door once we finish some other renovations.

Anonymous wrote:We built this in our entryway and it serves the purpose quite nicely.

Love this!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would love a mudroom, but my bigger dealbreakers were wanting a short commute and not having millions of dollars with which to purchase a house. Very few (maybe one?) of the houses that were close in and less than $1.5 million that we looked at had a mud room I'm surprised that so many people around here feel strongly about this given the variety of constraints in this market.

+100
We paid for location/walkability, schools, Metro—so mud room (though would love one) wasn’t on the list. Homes in our neighborhood in our price range our older/remolded $1.4 million—for the mud room you are looking at a $2million new build. Garages also aren’t typical and if people have them- they are unattached so I don’t even see the point if you have a storage shed.

This reminds of watching HGTV and these 20-somethings have a huge list of "MUST-HAVES" some strange, etc.

We bought a home in NW and one in Clarendon when there were 20-some offers on each---after waiting for a year of little or no inventory. Chr*st, we had to forgo most contingencies and buy 'as is' just to get in the neighborhood we wanted and we had a VERY short list--basically # of bedrooms. Once we got the houses it was on us to work with what we could with what little was left over for renovation/remodel.

IF you are in a very hot location and do not have UNLIMITED (read over 2-3 million to spend) you are getting the lot you want and that's about it.

But---I love mudrooms. That is one thing we have thought about adding on in time.

Anonymous wrote:I would love a mudroom, but my bigger dealbreakers were wanting a short commute and not having millions of dollars with which to purchase a house. Very few (maybe one?) of the houses that were close in and less than $1.5 million that we looked at had a mud room I'm surprised that so many people around here feel strongly about this given the variety of constraints in this market.

+100
We paid for location/walkability, schools, Metro—so mud room (though would love one) wasn’t on the list. Homes in our neighborhood in our price range our older/remolded $1.4 million—for the mud room you are looking at a $2million new build. Garages also aren’t typical and if people have them- they are unattached so I don’t even see the point if you have a storage shed.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most people in DC live in rowhouses without mudrooms and are fine. You can have hooks on the wall and move the coats to a closet elsewhere in the house.

Looks like a big mess.


If you are in the burbs, need closet at a min. and a mudroom is awesome.

We are in a DC duplex and enter right into our living space. Every time I look at a house online or in person, first thing I look for is space for a proper entryway and place to hang coats. I like our little house but really don't like opening the door into the sitting room or having shoes and coats creep into it either. (And we are about as neat and minimalist as a family of four gets.)