By Kate Longley • Kate Longley Designs
Here’s a little experiment I love running with clients.
Think about the room you walk through most often in your home. Not the one you’re proudest of. The one you pass through often without thinking about it.
For a lot of people, it’s the back hallway from the garage. The laundry room. The kids’ bathroom. The spot by the door where everyone’s shoes end up in a heap.
Now think about how much of your budget went to that room.
I’m guessing it made you smile a little.
It happens in almost every project, and I don’t think it’s because anyone is being careless. It’s just how our brains work when we plan a home.
We picture the tour. The front door opens, the entry feels grand, the living room catches the light, the kitchen gets its moment. Those are the rooms we imagine other people seeing, so those are the rooms that get the attention and the money.
Meanwhile the back door, the one you use eleven times a day, gets a basic light fixture and whatever flooring was left over.
I’ve started thinking about it in terms of cost per use.
A beautiful, rarely used formal room might get walked into a few dozen times a year. Your laundry room might get a few thousand visits. If you spread the budget across how often a room is part of your life, the math starts to look a little different.
I’m not saying skip the pretty rooms. I love a pretty room. I’m just saying the spots where you spend your ordinary minutes deserve a seat at the table when the budget conversation happens.
So, what does a little extra care look like in these rooms? It’s usually smaller than people expect.
In the entry from the garage, it might be a bench with real hooks above it, a surface for keys, and a floor that can handle a summer of dust and a Scottsdale monsoon’s worth of muddy paws. In the laundry room, it’s good light, a counter that’s the right height for folding, and a finish you don’t mind looking at. In the kids’ bathroom, it’s a tile that cleans up in a swipe and a mirror that doesn’t make anyone feel worse about a Tuesday morning.
None of it has to be flashy. It just has to feel good to be in. Because you will be in there.
What I love is how much these rooms change the feel of the whole day.
When the first thing you do coming home is drop your bag somewhere that looks lovely and works perfectly, you exhale a little. When the room where you do the laundry has a window and a plant and decent music playing, it stops being a chore room and turns into a little reset button.
You don’t notice those moments one at a time. You notice them added up, as a house that just feels easy to live in.
So, the next time you’re sketching a budget, try a small flip. Before you decide what the showstoppers get, ask which rooms you’ll actually be standing in on an ordinary Wednesday. Give those a real share.
The guests will still love the living room. But you will love your home a whole lot more.
Your Paradise Valley Interior Designer
KATE LONGLEY DESIGNS
Paradise Valley · Scottsdale, Arizona