Mudroom Closet Transformation

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In a perfect world every house would be built with a beautiful full size mudroom.  However most of us are lucky to even have this:

 

And if you have kids there’s a good chance it looks something more like this:

I realize the doors are off in this picture but come on – when does your child actually close the closet door?

One of my favorite things to do is make my house more functional for my family.  And if it ends up more pretty in the process – BONUS!   So after tripping over coats, backpacks and shoes for the hundreth time, I decided it was time to do something about it and came up with this transformation:

 

Here’s what I did:

* Lined the closet with beadboard

* Built cubby shelves for each of us.

* Replaced the trim to match the era of the rest of the 1900’s house

* Built a bench out of reclaimed wood.  The wood came from some joists that had to be replaced on our porch because they were rotting out on the ends.   They originally came from the rafters of an old grainry that used to be on our farmstead.  I think it is so awesome that they have found life three times now.  I used my planer on them and they came out beautiful.

* I wanted an easy way to assign the hooks and cubbies for my kiddos so I  bought house numbers at the hardware store and mounted them.

* For our shoes I came up with 2 solutions.  I have the washtubs under the bench.  I love the farmhouse vibe they give and they are easy for the kids to use.   The other neat thing I found was a shoe cabinet from IKEA.  I love it.  You would never know its hiding shoes in there. See..

 

I love our new “mudroom”closet.  It helps to keep us so much more organized and its just plain pretty to look at!   If getting out the saw and drill seems like  a little much for you don’t worry;  you could get the same effect with a bench and some store bought shelving. Or use the existing shelf in your closet and put some cute baskets on it.  Maybe consider painting the inside of the closet a fun color to make it pop a little more.  Add a few coat hooks and Voila! You have yourself a mudroom closet.