Our Mudroom Plan

Our mudroom plan is to take our blank, bare, space that doesn't have many organization systems in place, and turn it into a beautiful and functional room for our family!

Waaaaaaaayyy back at the beginning of the year, I wrote a post about the four spaces I wanted to get organized this year: my office, our mudroom, our garage, and our basement. So far we've completed my office (See the reveal here!) and have tidied up a little bit in the garage and the basement, but we haven't done much else. (Update: The garage is now finished too! See it here!)

Back-to-school season will be here before we know it, so we decided that we wanted to tackle the mudroom next since it is the main way we enter our house, and it becomes a drop zone for book bags, coats, and shoes while school is in session.

As a reminder, here is what our mudroom looked like at the beginning of the year:

We added a new light fixture a few months ago, but besides that, the mudroom looks pretty much the same these days:

Our Mudroom Plan

The mudroom is not terrible by any stretch of the imagination, but there are a few systems that I want to put in place to make it more practical (and more beautiful too)! We are planning to tackle the space in two phases.

Phase One

During phase one, we want to make some of the smaller (but mighty!) improvements. This includes:

• Painting the walls and the doors
• Adding a command center
• Putting in a better closet system and organizing the closet

Painting the Mudroom

I always knew we would paint the walls from the dingy white that the builder had selected. I had the idea that it might be fun to paint the doors, but I was unsure if I would actually go for it. One day I was inspecting the door that goes from the mudroom into our garage when I noticed that the paint looked like it was peeling in one spot.

Thinking that it was just a tiny piece of paint that was flaking off, I pulled on it, and to my surprise, the paint started peeling off of the door in big sheets! Since it is a door to the outside, it is a steel door, and I'm fairly sure that our builder just sprayed the slippery surface with paint without using any type of primer, which is what caused it to peel right off. Eeek!

I spent an hour or two peeling off all of the old paint, and since I was now going to have to paint the door anyway, I decided that it may as well be a fun color! My plan is to paint both the door to the garage and the closet door in Sherwin Williams Rainwashed (color matched in Behr Marquee paint-- my favorite!), which is the color I used in my office nook. I love it in my office, so I'm betting I will love it for the mudroom doors as well!

Sherwin Williams Rainwashed, matched in Behr Marquee paint in my office nook

For the walls, I am going to use Behr Marquee Silver City mixed at half strength. Silver City is my most favorite gray-- I've used it in several rooms, both in our townhouse and in our current house. I used it mixed at half strength in our current sunroom for a bit of a lighter look, and I thought that would work well for the mudroom as well since there are no windows in this space. (If you're unfamiliar with mixing paint at partial strength, my friend KariAnne from Thistlewood Farms has a great post about it here.)

Behr Marquee Silver City mixed at half strength in our current sunroom

Adding a Simple Command Center

One thing that we have not had in this house since we moved in (nearly two years ago now!) is a central location to collect important papers and information that the boys bring home from school-- permission slips, announcements, event schedules, etc. Up to this point, they have cluttered up the dining room table or have been thrown in our kitchen "junk drawer," neither of which was optimal!

I want to use the space to the left of the mudroom closet to put in a small command center that contains an in/out box for each of the boys, a board where we can hang announcements and invitations that we need to remember, and a few pretty decorative items as well. (We do our family calendar digitally using Google Calendar, so I don't think I'll need to add a full calendar in this space, but we shall see! 🙂 )

pegboard combination, clock, frame, magnet board

Maximize Our Closet Space

Finally, the longer we live in our house, the more I realize that even though the house is a good size, there is not a ton of closet space! Our master closet is a nice size, but the other bedroom closets, the linen closet, and this mudroom closet are all fairly small, so I really want to maximize every inch!

As is probably predictable at this point, I'm planning to use IKEA's ALGOT system to add smarter storage to our closet and make room for shoes, coats, and outerwear. This will be our 7th (!!!) ALGOT project between our two houses, and I've loved every other time we've used it, so I know it will work well in the mudroom too!

IKEA's ALGOT system in our townhouse master closet. You can also see it in our townhouse pantry, townhouse office, current pantry, boys' bedroom, and playroom closet.

I am planning on moving our broom, Bona mop, Swiffer, etc. out to an organization unit that we'll be putting in the garage-- hopefully the garage will be the next project we tackle after the mudroom.

Phase 2

I mentioned that we will be doing the mudroom project in two phases. Phase two will simply (or not-so-simply!) be installing built-ins in the nook that is across from the closet wall. Since the built-ins will be a pretty extensive woodworking project, we are planning to hire out at least part of it, so the completion will be dependent on when we can get someone in to work on it!

(Totally crushing on Erin's cute mudroom and Nina's amazing mudroom space, both of which have incredible built-ins!)

I am excited to get some built-ins in this space, as the nook seems to be begging for them, but we also want to make sure that the job is done really well, so we're willing to wait a bit and not rush it.

 

So that's the mudroom plan! I'm hoping to be back in the not-too-distant future with some updates on phase one, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that phase two will follow not too much longer after that. I'm excited to get this space organized just the way we want it, because I know that putting a few great systems in place can really make a big difference when it comes to getting rid of clutter and staying organized!

Update: The mudroom is now finished! You can see how everything turned out in these posts:

Our Mudroom Plan (You're here!)

Organized Coat Closet

Command Center Gallery Wall

Built-In Mudroom Nook

Organized Mudroom Reveal

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

Do you have a mudroom/drop zone in your house? I'd love to hear your tips and tricks for keeping it organized in the comments below!

Have a wonderful day!