establishing hierarchy

One of the strange things about this house is that it has a garbage closet, accessible from the outside. It's large enough to hold 4 large garbage cans, recycle bins and any other crap you can squeeze in there. It is enclosed, insulated space and counted as 'livable square footage' of the house. Our garbage gets premium taxed space!

Interesting thing is that this garbage closet sits right next to a secondary entrance and shares its backwall with an interior hall closet. Combine those closets, replace the garbage door with a window, and we now have a nice little mudroom. It's not an expensive project, relatively speaking, and requires no permits, but makes so much better use of the space.

And snap! The garbage goes into a shed or garage where it rightfully belongs.