Organization and the Mudroom

Welcome to February everyone!   One of the most common new year’s resolutions behind losing weight is usually to get more organized.  That being said, let’s keep some of those new year’s resolutions and focus on how we can organize our homes in this short month.  This month, we will focus on sharing tips and hints from our life, but also freebies and ideas from around the web as well.

Today, let’s start out with the first place you typically enter your home – your Mudroom!  If you are lucky to have a mudroom, you know that it can typically become the dumping ground for everything from sporting equipment to small appliances to toilet paper.

My house doesn’t have a mudroom, but I wanted a place that would be a catchall for things as they came into my house.

I wanted this from Honey We’re Home.

But had a closet that looked like this…

And now I have this!!

So, here are the steps we took for this project:

• Paint the walls and ceiling & take out base boards
• Build the base shelf and platform – Shelf was from the Expedit series (see more here) at Ikea and my husband built a platform using 2x4s and a piece of pre-finished 1×4 trim board.
• Paint some awesome pattern on the back wall – To learn more about the stripes, click here.
• Build the hook panel on the back wall – Took a 1×6 (since the stripes are 6 inches) and painted it the stripe color. Hooks were from Lowes.
• Upholster a cushion to top the bench – See more on this here.
• Fill with new shoes and coats (Ok, wasn’t in the original plan but I added this one!:) Just ordered my new pair from ShoeDazzle!

A few key things I have found have been so important for organizing a good mudroom or entry?

1. A drop spot – just a surface to keep purses and bags off the floor
2. Everything has its place – if it doesn’t it doesn’t belong there.
3. Baskets – Since completing this project we have added more baskets above and even created labels so we know what goes in each basket.
4. A rug for shoes – I have found that people don’t take off their shoes on hard surfaces – once I put the rug down, people take that as a sign to take their shoes off on the rug vs. walking into my house with their boots.

Want to see all the steps for this project? Click here!  What are your tips for keeping a clean mudroom? Share your ideas and we will feature them later in the week!