Make-shift Mud Room

As we enjoy a few days of 70 degree weather here in central NC, it's time to put away the coats, hats and scarves we were using over the weekend--and just two days ago when school was delayed 3 hours for wintry weather!! Crazy! I know.

If you're anything like me, the Hansel & Gretel-like trail of mittens is enough to break you. But, in the kiddos defense, many homes are not built for the way a family truly LIVES and there really is no place to store these cold weather layers.

For instance, let's look at my house.  The house is relatively large and logic would indicate there will probably be more than 1-2 folks (and their gear) living here. Well, MY logic--clearly not the logic of the person that designed the house!

The main entrance for our family is through the garage. When you walk in, there is a wall 3 feet in front of your face and a 3 ft. wide hallway with a small niche and (thankfully!) a coat closet next to the niche.  It's kind of tight when you're walking in with kids, keys, cell phone, purse, a backpack or two and groceries.

As I mentioned, it drives me cRaZy to have coats and backpacks haphazardly lying around all over the house.  So, here's what I did:

• I measured the area and figured that I could fit 4 hooks along the wall opposite the garage door and one in the niche--with plenty of space for "stuff" to hang.  I could've probably added another one but decided against it.  
• I don't remember what led me to eBay but that's where I headed for hooks.  (I had a 6-month old at the time--it's all a bit of a blur!) I'm partial to fleur-de-lis and was fortunate enough to find a set of these.

• I opted for the double hook for obvious reasons (read: we have lots of junk).  This is what they look like in place.

One of the (many) things on my to-do list is to add a custom built-in seat to the niche for additional storage, seating for putting on shoes and a more finished look for my faux mud room.  One day....

Because my children are young, I also added hooks (mounted lower) in the coat closet so they could hang their coats.  And I organized the shoe/coat closet with a shoe rack from Target. The closet doesn't stay perfectly straight but at least there's room for both kid's shoes and they're easily accessible.  AND---they're contained!  Are you seeing a theme of junk corralling around here??  After all, contained junk looks sooo much better than junk on the loose, don't you agree?

I would have let you see into the closet for the Target shoe storage rack but the pics kept coming out really dark.

Here's what fellow blogger, Emily Clark did for her little ones:

Photos from emilyaclark.blogspot.com

Here's an example of a double row of hooks by the back door.  One thing to keep in mind is that this looks super-awesome with no coats on it...but... Are you going to have to squeeze in the door once you load it up with all your stuff??

via pinterest

Another example of a make-shift mud "room".  I would probably leave the bottom open instead of adding baskets so people can kick shoes off and scoot them under.  Of course, I love a good, glossy magazine pic as well as the next gal but I LIVE in the real world.  I know how my people roll and it isn't bending down to put stuff in some baskets, no matter how cute (the people and/or the baskets).

wholesomemommy.com

This photo shows a hall tree for storage near the door.  That wouldn't work well for me because there would be 27 coats on it and it would topple on its first day at work in my house!  But, it looks good here and might work for you!

I like this pic from pinterest that shows exactly how they made a "mudroom" in a walkway.  I could live without the sheet metal but you get the idea.

via pinterest

I hope this gives you some ideas on how to store your stuff if you aren't lucky enough to have a dedicated mud room.

If you do have a true space for your gear, stay tuned.  We'll be featuring Jacki's mud room in a future post!  You don't want to miss it.  Serious.eye.candy.

What are you doing to contain the clutter/junk/stuff at your humble abode?