We just finished building a house. Our laundry room/pantry was designed with a door specifically for dog purposes but we haven’t hung it yet and our dog has yet to go in (house was planned when he was younger and more curious, now that we’re in there are too many other adjustments for him to bother. I’m sure he’ll get there eventually). My recommendation would be have the opening be a standard door width and think about where you’d want it to swing so you can plan electrical placements, then you can try living without it and add one in easily enough later if you want. We’ve discovered that it’s really nice not to deal with a door when hands are full. But the door is sitting in our pile of closet doors waiting to be installed if we want it.

I think mudroom should have been in the area of the master bathroom so you could access it from the driveway or backyard.

same, very frustrating. I think they’re formatted for phones not computer monitors?

Just choose an obscure glass. Chris Loves Julia chose pantry doors with glass and finally had to give up and install curtains over the glass to hide the mess. Ooops.

Ditto

How about a door with a glass panel(s)?

I actually decant as an inventory system! I cannot overstate how much it helps my brain. A full box of cereal looks exactly like an empty one, but a glass jar holds no secrets. I decant a few things in the pantry, to help me actually use ingredients (out of sight out of mind… just me?). But the real star is two open shelves in the main kitchen which hold our daily use stuff (mostly breakfast), so everyone in the family knows when we run low. This way, the grocery list doesn’t live in my brain alone. We are never caught off guard at 7am with no Cheerios. HUGE function improvement in our house. If this is a pain point for anyone else, I highly recommend a few glass jars in a visible spot. Looks cute, but works hard!

my friend put in a really pretty custom wooden gate like half door.

100% have a pantry door. Think holiday meals when you have 50 million boxes, cans, bags of dried fruit, dishes, etc. that you frantically throw onto shelves because your counters are full. I keep a beautiful wreath on my CLOSED pantry door and no one is the wiser. BTW, we have two large dogs who know their treats are in the pantry (not accessible to them), and that’s another reason to close the door. I love love love the paint color in your pantry.