I’m just going to leave this right here…
Welcome to the lower-level mudroom, my friends! We have taken you through some of the other beautiful spaces of our Minnetonka Beach Project and it is now time to take in the details of this stunning mudroom, packed with so much functionality!
Let me set the stage for you for a moment…
It’s spring and you just took the dogs for a walk. You look at them and realize their cute little undercarriages and paws are full of muck! It’s too cold to put them in the lake because the ice just thawed. No problem! You now have a dog wash! You can now take them through the garage and NOT through the home’s central area. Instead, you can go straight into the dog wash and avoid a massive mess!
This home has a tuck-under garage where you enter into the home, so we turned part of the garage into the mudroom where sports equipment, beach towels, and wet dogs can reside, while the upper-level back entry houses backpacks and seasonal jackets.
The entire lower level was built with durability because it’s the entry point from the garage and from the lake. We matched the beautiful upper-level white oak floors and laid durable LVT on this level to handle heavier wear and tear.
Let’s go back to that fantastic dog wash! This family has two adorable dogs so it had to be able to fit both dogs at once because you can’t have one dirty dog running around while the other is getting bathed!
There were so many details to consider when designing a dog wash, like the height of the glass – It can’t be too high or you couldn’t reach the pups and it can’t be too low or they will jump out. We also paid attention to the small detail of the edges of the glass. We rounded the edges so that the glass isn’t cutting into your waste when you’re leaning over to wash your dogs!
And we all know most dogs don’t especially love baths, so we added reinforced hooks to the back of the dog wash with leads to help keep the pups steady and in control!
Not only did this dog wash revolve around the two dogs (obviously), but the minute we knew we were designing it, we knew it had to have a dog paw in the tile!
This was the perfect handheld faucet for this dog wash because it had a nice sleek design that can be removed from the holder to properly wash the dogs and reach all areas so it can be easily cleaned up after the pups are out!
On the main level, we created closed lockers to contain the mess but down here, the homeowners wanted something more open for larger bags of equipment.
We wanted the storage space to be open but also to feel it had a bit of dimension so we added these adorable dividers.
And on the bottom, we kept the space open without a divider so multiple pairs of shoes and boots or sports bags can tuck in there.
To give you perspective as to where the lower-level mudroom is, you can see on the left hand side of the image is the back entry and down the stairs is where it resides.
Just down the stairs is where you will find the dumbwaiter. This is so convenient coming from the garage with heavy groceries. Pop them in the dumbwaiter and they will be at the top of the stairs right off the kitchen.
In addition, there is tons of storage back here! Just because it’s in the lower level, doesn’t mean it can’t also be beautiful!
I’d say it’s pretty pup approved!