I love Pinterest, there I said it :) I've spent countless hours there, clicking on pins & reading fabulous blog posts and wonderful articles in magazines, wishing I could organize our home even half as well. I kept seeing pins referring to a "mudroom." Naturally, not knowing what such a beastie might be, I was intrigued :)
It turns out that a mudroom is the entryway to our home. The place where dirty shoes & boots should be left to avoid tracking mud through the home. In our case this equates to the tiny little space (and it really is tiny) we have between our front door and the inner door we have that then leads into our hallway.
This weeny space is what we've always used to hang coats, drop off shoes, bags, gloves and hats. So honeys, having found out what a mudroom is, and then working out that we actually have a tiny one, We looked at it and thought "let's put some order into this dumping ground for coats & shoes" and using 4 green plastic crates we had upstairs and a few baskets, we did :)
As you can see we placed the crates two across and two high. The crates have holes in their sides (its their design) and hubby securely fastened them together using broad Velcro tape through these holes. It gave us a secure little set of 4 cubbies.
Our coats hang up on hooks on the back of the door to the under-stairs cupboard, so I've organized the little cubbies like this.....
The first cubbie holds things belonging to our furbaby Jade, jackets, brushes, her little rain macs and her high visibility safety vest for dark nights. Her leads and harness are in a little basket on top of the cubbies, but I'll show you that later. We use a harness for Jade's walks because we've always been worried about hurting her neck by walking her using a lead attached to her collar. So this is Jade's cubby, it has everything she needs to go walkies with her Daddy :)
The cubby next to Jade's we've designated as a place to store canned drinks. Now you'll see from the label I've attached to this cubby that I've labelled it "canned juice." I should explain, it's a colloquialism, slang is all. In Scotland we call it "juice" but its really just carbonated fizzy pop or soda. Hubby and I don't drink so this is as crazy as we get I'm afraid :) Just the odd can of fizzy pop :)
I should say that we've always stored our bottled water in this little outer hall because it's the coldest place in the house. It's always freezing out there so it's ideal for keeping things cool. Which takes us onto our next cubby.
The cubby directly underneath the fizzy juice (or soda/ pop) is where we've put the bottled water....
Again, it's kept cool out there and also it's easy to grab a bottle as I head out the door to work :)
The last cubby holds the larger bottles of "juice" as well as assorted bottles of fruit squash.
I've seen different kinds of cubby units before (I so love the Ikea Expedit range but hadn't considered making a DIY version using crates (it was hubby's idea, thank you sweetheart!) and honestly I'm really pleased at how it's turned out :)
I added some little baskets on top just as catch-alls, as I said earlier, there is a basket above Jade's cubby just to hold her leads & harness. This basket also holds her box of doggie bags to clean up when out walkies. There will also be a couple of tennis balls in there too, she so loves to play chase when she goes to the park with her Dad :)
Next to Jade's basket is another catch-all basket for our hats & gloves etc, so now maybe I'll be able to find both matching gloves when I need them and who knows, maybe even a scarf too :)
ok, I have to say something here, glancing at the above photo I could just smack myself :) scarfs? <shakes head> Scarves, Rosie! scarves :) lol :)
So, that glaring error in spelling brings us to the last little basket :) I do love these baskets, I found them at a local Poundworld shop and bought them because of the colour which I just love :)
As you can see I've used the other mint coloured basket to hold our re-usable shopping bags. Much easier to remember to take them with me if I pass them as I go out the door.
So, what do you think of our little make-over honeys? Before, it was a dumping ground really, with no order to it now I'm hoping to be able to just grab anything I need on my way out the door and stress a little less :)
I wanted to take a "before" photo for you but while I was upstairs folding clean laundry to put away hubby had cleared everything out for me, bless him :) He's on holiday from work this week and has spent the entire time helping me organize and move furniture. He did all of the furniture moving, bless him. I am a very lucky lady and every day I say a little thank you for my good fortune. So, dearest hubby, just so you know, I appreciate all you do and love you with all my heart xx
I don't know if you noticed in the photos but I made the labels using the same background as the ones I've used in the mail sorting made easy post (which also included a printable.) I thought that if you'd downloaded the printable labels there, that maybe you'd want to make your own labels for your mudroom (or anywhere else) and so you can personalize them, like I did by putting Jade's name on her cubby & basket, I thought I'd make a blank label printable for you :)
It's sized at 8 x 10 inches, so plenty of room for as many labels as you need. I used Pic Monkey (and the playball font) to make the other labels if you want them to match. You can download the printable from here.
Over to you honeys, how do you organize your homes mudroom? How do you keep control of doorway clutter? I'd love to hear, do leave a comment below. I hope you're seeing lots of sunshine wherever you are honeys and having a fantastic week. Till next time, sending heaps of hugs xx
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