I. My son used to beg me to stop at particular McDonald’s, not for the food, but for the play structures with ball pits. Those colorful, cavernous structures where all tubes lead to the ball pit were more attractive to him than ice cream, Happy Meals, or even my company. Children, it seems, love the chaos of the ball pit for the infinite play options that range from friendly fire to wrestling to hide and seek. There’s something about the openness of possibilities in that pit of cheap, multicolored orbs that makes kids feel like car fanatics do at Le Mans.

In my design career, I am yet to happen across a house where the parents indulge their children’s most lavish wish by granting them a private ball pit. I have, however, found myself in many-a-space designated as the children’s play room that, by all functional accounts, is a close second. These rooms are a child’s wonderland, with minimal furniture, no breakables, and toys strewn about the floor. As many tourists do in the Greek islands, hopping from Santorini to Laos to Mikanos, kids move from toy group to toy group, enjoying the entertaining fruits each offers.

Jennifer’s house had such a room – huge, open, toys strewn across the terrain like a localized tornado had run across the toy chest – that was enjoyed by her three children, Emma (3), Austin (9), and Robert (41). Robert, who will also be playing the roles of father and husband in this story, leads the young army on missions to erect rollercoaster’s, race remote controlled cars, build clay structures, host Play Dough spaghetti banquets, paint fantastic scenes, and any number of other fantastically playful activities.

Even for Robert, however, this anything-goes room was letting too many things go. His professional, adult side was screaming for order, and I’m not only talking about Jennifer. He was tired of tripping over a dump truck while trying to get a laser-shooting renegade robot cop that was slated to participate in the round robin action figure tournament. Robert didn’t want to stop playing; he wanted to stop playing within such chaos. The room needed more order, and that was his primary motivation for embarking on this project.

Jennifer agreed the room needed to be restructured, but she saw a greater need that extended beyond the bounds of play. Step out the back of this toy haven and find yourself in a farm. If Robert’s free time passion is play, Jennifer’s is her animals. Robert becomes covered in paint and marker during his activities, and Jennifer returns covered in mud after caring for her horses and goat. Where Robert could simply walk to the bathroom and wash from his body the signs of his activity, Jennifer had to stand outside shaking herself like a wet dog, hoping to minimize the amount of the farm brought inside. If it was raining and muddy outside, she would take her boots off outside and try to hop inside without making too much of a mess. In our discussions, we decided that in addition to restructuring the playroom, a mudroom would be included in the project.

As they say on TV infomercials: Wait! There’s more! I had previously worked with Robert and Jennifer on their kitchen, and in doing so, created a Cinderella story by turning the unglamorous laundry room into a beautiful pantry (start telling your kids the story of The Laundry Room and The Pantry instead of Cinderella… mine’s much better). Much like Newton’s laws, it’s an interior design fact that a laundry room removed must be replaced with a laundry room equal or superior to the one removed, so we added a laundry room to this project as well.

The project became one of turning one room into three without sacrificing the usability of the initial room. The mudroom and laundry room had to be fully functional, of course, but not encroach on the playroom’s openness.

II. The functional requirements of the laundry room would have surprised only certain king and queens, of both countries and industry, who do not understand where their clothes go after someone picks them up and before they are returned smelling vaguely like the English countryside. The rest of us would have found nothing shocking about Jennifer and Robert’s request to have two machines, a washer and a drier, an ironing board, and cabinet space sufficient to house detergents, softeners, and suchlike. Robert’s only concern was that everything functioned properly, namely, that all doors could open fully and the ironing board could be used comfortably.

The mudroom was to be used as a rugged space for cleaning oneself off, and for hanging and storing dirty clothing and boots. It would serve as a decontamination room, or as a depressurizing room for someone with the bends. If Jennifer entered the mudroom covered in mud, she would be able to change into clean clothes without worrying about the impact the filth would have on the room. The mudroom scoffed at the sissy house for not being able to tolerate a bit of dirt, and the rest of the house was frightened by the filthy, snarling, uncultured mudroom.

There was not much room for disagreement on the functional needs of the laundry room and mudroom. Both are so utility-oriented that there is not much room for interpretation when considering their use. This was not the case for a playroom, and Robert and Jennifer certainly had two differing concepts for how it was to be used after the redesign.

Robert didn’t see any need to change the focus of use in the room, rather just a need to add some order to it. He still wanted to play with toys, build structures, use paints and clays, and wrestle, just without falling onto all the other toys in the process. He imagined a system of organization where similar toys would be grouped and stored, and his kids would have easy access to them. They would learn to put the action figures back in the action figures box, replace the pens in the container from which they came, and so forth. Once the toys freed from their holding pens, however, the room would still be an anything-goes environment.

Jennifer realized her kids were getting older, and the function of the room would begin to shift from a purely recreational area to include more family activities. To that end, she envisioned a large, comfortable chair where she could read to her kids. She basically wanted a family room without the television. This isn’t to say she didn’t want toys or play in the area, she just wanted to include more livable, cozy elements to the room.

Both agreed the room would be used for family activities like board games, and eventually for homework. As the kids got older, there would be a shift away purely from play onto other activities, so the room would need to be able to change with the kids’ interests and needs.

III. The laundry room had no pretensions of being a formal dining room, gym, or anything else for that matter. Utility was the name of the game for this laundry room, so it was more than happy hibernating when all the clothes were clean, ironed, and ostensibly smelling like sunshine, or a giddy anthropomorphic teddy bear.

Robert and Jennifer’s cat had long ago marked its territory in the end of the playroom by the door, and frankly didn’t care what else went on in that room so long as its litter box was still there. Consequently, it was mandatory there be space within the mudroom for the cat’s litter box, otherwise the room would be made dirtier than already intended.

Jennifer also wanted a refrigerator in this room so that she would not have to undergo a complete detoxification just to get a cold drink. With the current setup, she would have to get sufficiently clean just to reach her refrigerator, which was both a hassle and a waste of time.

The playroom was the Mr. Potato Head of the trio, being content to wear many hats. It’s primary secondary purpose as a room was as a thoroughfare to the back yard. All members of the family access this yard for their various purposes, Robert and kids mainly to play, and Jennifer to tend to the animals.

It was a room Jennifer used to read and relax when the activity was elsewhere in the house. If the kids were watching television and Robert was working, she could find a quiet corner in this room for herself. Similarly, Robert used this room during Christmas for wrapping presents because of its size and location at the end of the house. He got a long banquet table and made a one-man assembly line.

Robert and Jennifer wanted to use this room as the bedroom for their dogs and cat once it was complete. There is an animal door to the backyard that would be left open, but if it became cold or wet, they could come and stay the night inside.

Finally, Jennifer saw the entire project, laundry, mud, and playroom, as having a larger secondary purpose benefiting their resale value. She saw them getting three rooms out of one, and being able to list the house as having a separate laundry room and mudroom, and listing the children’s playroom as that, or a den, library, family room, music room, art studio, and so on. Robert was less interested in using the redesign to enhance the value of the house, but was by no means against the idea of it.