Built-In Mudroom Bench, Shelf, and Coat Hooks

This built-in mudroom bench, shelf, and coat hooks totally transformed the space, creating an organized mudroom that is also beautiful and practical!

Y’all, I am so tickled to declare this week “Mudroom Week, Part 2”! Waaaaaaayy back in July I shared the plan for our small mudroom space. We quickly executed Part 1, which included giving the coat closet a makeover with improved storage pieces…

…and putting in a little command center gallery wall to keep us organized for the school year.

So one side of the mudroom was looking good! The other side, however, was still in need of some work.

I had a very clear vision of what I wanted in this space to look like ever since we moved in, but figuring out how to execute it was the tricky part!

[Psssstttt… Did you know that we have all of our very best tips and tricks for organizing every single room of the house in this post?!]

DIY or Hire It Out?

Donnie and I aren’t afraid of a little (or big) DIY project. We’ve gutted kitchens and bathrooms and rebuilt them from the studs back up. We’ve hacked just about every piece of furniture known to IKEA. We’ve painted and added trim to anything that would stay still long enough to let us do it.

Our renovated townhouse kitchen… probably our biggest DIY to date.

We honestly don’t hire out much, so when we first started thinking about putting some sort of built-ins in this little mudroom nook, I assumed we’d do it ourselves.

So I did what I normally do when I have a specific vision for a space: I started looking for ways to make it happen. I looked at IKEA and other furniture retailers for something we could hack or retrofit to work in the nook. I looked up all sorts of DIY mudroom tutorials on Pinterest. I scoured Instagram for ideas.

But after researching and looking around and trying to find some way to make something work, I was still at a loss. The nook in the mudroom isn’t a standard sized space, so it wasn’t like there was a piece of furniture out there that was going to fit it perfectly.

Sure, we probably could’ve hacked something up, but I think it would have looked like we hacked it up, and I definitely didn’t want that. We could have gone with a simpler design than the one I had dreamed up in my head, but this is (we hope!) our “forever home,” so I wanted something we would love and want to keep forever.

Ultimately, much to my surprise, we decided that this project would work best if we hired it out. And fortunately, one of Donnie’s very best friends is a master at woodworking, so we didn’t have to look far to find the perfect person for the job!

I drew him a rough sketch on a piece of paper, showed him some examples of the different elements I wanted to incorporate, and he was able to build something even more beautiful than I dreamed up! Want to see?!

Okay, okay I’ll show you! 😉

Built-In Mudroom Bench, Shelf, and Coat Hooks

This post contains affiliate links. For more information, see my disclosures here.

Our little mudroom nook went from looking like this shortly after we moved in…

…to this when our friend had finished!

It doesn’t even look like the same space! Yippee!!

Let’s talk details.

I knew I wanted drawers as the base of the unit. They are actually empty right now (yay for extra storage space!), but when it gets cold and snowy out and we start wearing all of the scarves, hats, and gloves, I think the ones that we wear most often will be kept in here for easier access.

We chose to have the top part of the bench stained (in Minwax Dark Walnut, to be exact) because I liked the contrast with the white, and because I figured it would be easier to keep looking nice than a white top would have been.

I really like it when pieces of our house tie together because I think it gives a cohesive feel, so we chose to do vertical boards going up the back part of the unit, which sort of mimic what we have going on in our living room…

…and the corbels I chose for the mudroom are smaller versions of the ones we used on our kitchen island.

We also used these coat hooks.

The mudroom unit is painted Behr Marquee Cameo White, which is the same white we used for the kitchen island, the board and batten in the living room, and the trim work we’ve installed in the house. I love it when a plan comes together!

I went back and forth over whether to do cabinets at the top or a shelf, but at the end of the day, we didn’t really need any more storage, and I kept being drawn to the look of shelves when I was looking around at other mudrooms, so a shelf it was! (Plus, decorating shelves is one of my favorite things ever!!!)

We are already loving coming into the house to this space and hanging up our jackets and gear! You may notice that there are only three hooks and four people who live in our house…so how does that work?

Well, even when we had the temporary shelf with way more hooks, Donnie never actually used them. He has a set of hooks in his office, which is right through our living room, so he prefers to keep his stuff there. When we were designing the mudroom unit, then, and three hooks ended up looking the best, it was totally fine for him not to have one because even if he did, he wouldn’t have used it anyway!

I also couldn’t resist dressing up the space a little bit… maybe not the most practical for everyday, but definitely pretty to look at for a little while! 🙂

If you’ve missed any of our other mudroom posts, you can catch up and get more details about each of the projects here:

Our Mudroom Plan

Organized Coat Closet

Command Center Gallery Wall

Built-In Mudroom Nook (You’re here!)

Organized Mudroom Reveal

(Psssstttt… Working with a small space? See how we added a “mudroom” to our very tiny townhouse here!)

How do you like to organize your coats and bags? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!

Have a great day!

This post contains affiliate links. For more information, see my disclosures here.