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Friday Fun Thread for May 22, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Having incorporated the rest of your comments to get an idea of what you are looking for, I think I may have a solution for you. A few preliminary items:

  1. I'm assuming that when you say "Colonial" you are referring to what is known as "Colonial Revival", which is a 20th century update of the Georgian and Federal styles that were popular in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Basically, I'm assuming you aren't referring to French Colonial, or Spanish Colonial, or Dutch Colonial, or any of the other "Colonial" styles which may exist in North America.
  2. As a 20th century American style, this type of house would have no need for a mudroom per se. Most of these were built in auto-centric suburbs beginning in the 1920s, meaning the front door would not be used much. Early examples of this style were mostly built in more upscale neighborhoods, and once it became more common after World War II most people would have had a car. Prewar suburbs with these houses would have likely had detached garages behind the house, and later examples would have had attached garages. In Pittsburgh, the terrain is hilly and the garage is usually integral and opens into the basement. What I'm getting at is that the home's occupant's wouldn't normally use the front door, so a mudroom would be built in the back, off the garage, or it would have an unfinished basement to use for that purpose.
  3. Despite the ever-ballooning American house size, the dimensions you've proposed aren't modest. I don't use foreign units without conversion so you'll have to bear with me here, but 100 sq. meters is about 1076 sq. feet. Since this is a two-story house, doubling that gets you to 2152 sq. ft., which is plenty big.

To give an example to tie it all together, this is a 5-bay Colonial Revival home in a suburb of Pittsburgh. It was built in 1968 by Bryan, who is a reputable local builder that mostly focuses on custom homes these days but was doing tract houses in the 1960s and 1970s (not to be confused with Ryan Homes, a national developer of tract houses that's been building junk since at least the 1970s). The total area is 1890 sq. ft., though the footprint is only 875 as the second story slightly overhangs on both sides. It has 4 bedrooms and 2 1/2 baths. You will notice that the driveway goes down the hill behind the house and the garage is integrated into the basement. Ignore the assymetrical front layout. Here's a more upscale example from 1910. While it precedes the era of widespread automobile ownership, at 6900 square feet, it owner would have probably had a car, or at least a horse. [Note how the driveway leads to a carriage house in the rear [https://www.google.com/maps/@40.4513598,-79.9114955,3a,24.5y,311.56h,95.08t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1s_vxsZmkSMf0FSWoXMHGrIw!2e0!5s20220901T000000!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D-5.0819782887585205%26panoid%3D_vxsZmkSMf0FSWoXMHGrIw%26yaw%3D311.55661009264486!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDUyMC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D]. The owner would not have entered through the front door.

I initially intended to tell you that your problem was hopeless if you wished to remain architecturally correct, so I consulted The Bible, namely Virginia Savage McAlester's indispensible A Field Guide to American Houses and consulted the sections on Colonial Revival, Georgian, and Federal houses. What I discovered was that, contrary to my mental image of a colonial house, there is a rare variation with a centered gable. While these gables are usually small, and may not protrude from the central mass at all, it would be possible to bump this out and create a large enough area for a mud room. Unfortunately, since, per the book, this occurs in fewer than 5% of Colonial Revival houses and 10% of Georgian and Federal houses, it's hard to find pictures, and bump-outs of sufficient size are less common still. But I don't see why it couldn't be done. This House only bumps out slightly, but you could extend this by 5 feet or so and get a small mud room out of it. Some people build small mudrooms on their houses and they always look tacked-on, but with a central gable running all the way up it would be an integral part of the house, and from there you could just use a standard floor plan.

Beyond this, I don't see why there would be a problem with the stairs. Every house like this I've been in (and I can almost guarantee the layout of the first example) has the stairwell in the center of the house. Basically you'd walk in and there would be an entryway with a foyer leading down the center of the house to the kitchen in the back, with the stairwell running parallel on whichever side you want. To the right there's a family room, and to the left a living room and dining room. You can sacrifice some family room space for a half bath or hide one under the stairs. These houses almost always have four bedrooms.