{Clutter-Free Challenge} Day 20!
Time Needed: 15-45 minutes
Physical Rating: Light Duty
Emotional Rating: Minimal
This is our mudroom. If you don't know the story about this little number, take a peek here... you might be surprised to find out how it was made :) Although we created this mudroom with our specific needs in mind, there were certain things we just didn't account for...
Like for instance, the ridiculous amount of shoes our daughters have! There is just no need for this many shoes to be stored in our mudroom.
It's easy to imagine the frustrations caused by this many shoes packed into those drawers. Like, "I can't find my other shoe!" and "Mama, how come I have two left shoes of these?" and "Ummm, these don't fit me." all of which I've had the pleasure of hearing from my children and typically it's 38 seconds before the bus is due to arrive.
Here's my solution:
First off I purged everything that needed to go. Then I chose a few pairs of shoes for each child that could remain in the drawers and sent the rest to the kids' bedrooms. Because we are a "no shoes on in the house" kind of family, the kids are programmed to take their shoes off at the door and place them in the mudroom, so the shoes will undoubtedly pile up again. To try to prevent it, I added "bring shoes upstairs" to the kid's chores on Fridays. They are pretty good about chores, so I'm sure it'll work out great :)
I have to say that I'm super excited about spring. No more big, bulky coats to store inside the little closet part and no more hats, mittens, and scarves spilling over in the baskets on the shelves! Also since all the shoes now fit inside of the drawers, the cubbies are available for backpacks, lunchbags, and other "quick-grab" items for getting ready in the morning.
For the most part, I love my mudroom area. If you are able to do something similar just make sure to look at everything realistically. Will you have enough space for everyone's bare essentials? What about storage for guests' items? If you are only going to create enough storage for in-season items, where will you store the items that are out of season? Just food for thought :)
You don't need an actual mudroom to have a mudroom area. Check out these great ways to store all of your catch-all items!
I love this simple mudroom bench with hooks from Ellmania. The colorful, clustered coat hooks are so fun!
You know I love me some IKEA!
Although this doesn't take care of coats, I love the command center with the bench and baskets. It looks GREAT!
Not Martha was coveting the j-me shoe rack and decided to make her own version. Isn't it AWESOME?!
Thea's Mania really knows how to make a mudroom feel colorful and happy! Her blog is so fun to peruse since she is such a color genius. Be sure to use google translator though ;)
Real Simple converts a small coat closet into a super organized mudroom area. Lovely :)
This one is my FAVORITE. Country Living never disappoints. Two cupboards for storage with a cute, little bench between for putting on shoes. Perfectly executed!
Had I not already built a mudroom, this would have been the project that I splurged on. Is it normal that mudrooms make me giddy?!