When living on an acreage or if your family is outdoor oriented, a mudroom can be your best friend. It is a great place to catch mud, dirty shoes, and wet outdoor clothing before it enters your home. Ideally a mudroom should be big enough to house lockers for the family, a place to clean hands, and benches to remove or lace up boots. Many people combine their mud room with their laundry room. However, with some great organization even a small laundry room can become a great space to keep the rest of your home clean.
Here are a few tips for creating an awesome mudroom that will help keep your house clean and organized:
Store out of site with Lockers
Create lockers for each member of your family. These lockers don’t have to look like your old high school gym lockers. Use wood to make them stylish and match the rest of your home. At the bottom of the locker make a place to store dirty shoes. Make sure the bottom bin is removable so they are easy to pull out and clean. Make the middle of the locker a place to hang coats, and at the top a place to store backpacks. You can leave the lockers open for easy access, or install doors to hide the mess.
Hide clutter with Shoe Bins
If you don’t have enough space for lockers, a shoe bin might be the next best thing. Rather that have dirty, muddy shoes strung all over the floor, create a vertical wall holder to place shoes. Different sized bins can be made to fit different sized shoes. An inverted rack to hang wet boots upside down can be a nice addition.
Go vertical with a ladder
If you have high ceilings, go vertical with your mud room. Use the overhead space to store seasonal items – coats during the summer, swim gear during the winter. You will need a way to easily reach those items, so a roll-around ladder like those found in libraries can be stylish, easy to move and make it easy to access your vertical storage.
Make it easy to clean with durable flooring
Since the mud room will experience high traffic and dirty boots and shoes, you will want durable, easy to clean flooring. Tile or laminate makes a good choice, although you won’t want porous tile that can hide dirt and grit. Smooth tile and waterproof grout is best. For lower cost solutions, seamless vinyl flooring makes a great cover. To help catch mud before it makes it to the main living area, toss down a floor mat at the door, then a wool rug in the main part of the mud room. The floor mat will catch most of the mud and dirt, while the wool rug will stop the remainder. Wool is durable and easy to clean and also renewable.
Clean dirty shoes with a shoe shower
For the ultimate mud room, think about adding a “shoe shower”. This is a great place to clean off muddy boots or wash the dog. Many laundry rooms already have the necessary plumbing. With just a little modification you can create the perfect place to clean off both the family and pets before coming inside.
Below is a Pinterest board with some ideas on how to organize your own mudroom.
Follow James’s board Organize your mudroom on Pinterest.
