To that end, architects, builders and the people they’re working for are focusing on comfort and elaborate detailing in mudroom design.

Top priority

Hope Suttin, 40, a homemaker in Newton, Mass., says she had two priorities for the house her family built in 2004: a kitchen large enough to eat in and a mudroom.

The 8-by-14-foot mudroom she got — which has Jerusalem stone on the floor, cabinets by Country Craftsman, benches with upholstered cushions and hanging wire racks with sliding mud trays for wet shoes and boots — “was an integral part of the construction, not an add-on,” she says.

Even less visible mudrooms, like the 5-by-15-foot space tucked into a corner of the back foyer of Tracy Schaffzin and Greg Odland’s house in Chappaqua, N.Y., are becoming fancier. Theirs has blond wood shelving and a bluestone tile floor with radiant heat.

Kira McCarron, a marketing executive with Toll Brothers Inc., which builds about 6,000 upscale homes every year, says most of the company’s clients expect new homes to come with mudrooms and are increasingly demanding customization for specific needs.

“One family particularly wanted a dog shower put in,” she says.

As high-end mudrooms proliferate, they are generating envy among the have-nots. Julie Plaut Mahoney, a sociologist and mother of two in Newton Center, Mass., says she began joking to friends about coveting a mudroom for her town house. She had picked up her daughter from a play date at a house that had a particularly beautiful one. It had “beadboard and tons of light and tons of hooks.”

But soon she was serious about building one.

“We don’t lead a fancy life,” she says. “But somehow we have six coats apiece, and we do put a value on an orderly home.”

Construction is about to begin on Plaut Mahoney’s mudroom, which seems to be bringing her peace of mind already.

“There is status to having a mudroom,” she says, “because there is a status for a mom who works and has kids and can keep things calm. And a transition space contributes to calm.”

source : www.orlandosentinel.com

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