Mud Closet Project

Sometimes I wonder who designed my house because that person obviously wasn’t someone who did daily tasks such as laundry, unloading armfuls of groceries or keeping kids stuff like school bags, shoes and jackets organized.

There is a very tight space right off of our kitchen where I think a proper mud room area should be.  But, there isn’t one so what to do?!

For years I have wished I could have a large wall with a row of hooks and a bench for sitting and space for shoes and whatnot. 

Then after seeing some smaller mud spaces on Pinterest and in magazines it got me thinking…

Maybe I could squeeze something in my tight space after all? 

After a lot of researching and figuring how to re-organize all of our stuff, I finally figured out how to best use the space I have.  It’s not fancy but it is completely functional and I love it! 

We took a closet we were using to store the vaccuum, cleaning supplies and a lot of other miscellaneous stuff and turned it into a “mud closet.”  Unfortunately I don’t have any “before” pictures because when I get on a mission, I sort of forget about that kind of thing…but you all know what a closet with a door looks like and that’s exactly what we were dealing with!

Forgive the pictures…I’m working on my photography skills and clearly, I’m starting at square one!  Here’s the small space we transformed:

I found new places for the stuff in the closet and threw away a lot of things I didn’t need.  Then my husband took the door off the closet.

We added beadboard wainscoting to “line” the closet walls to make it pretty and durable and then we installed a seat.  I added a 1 x 4 board and installed 4 hooks from Lowes.  I also added some decorative moldings to finish off the top of the beadboard and the front of the seat.

I cut an inexpensive rug from IKEA to lay on top of the bench instead of using a cushion.  Right now, my kids still have to step on the seat to reach things on the shelf so I figured a rug was more durable.  Someday I’ll make a fluffy cushion.

Then, I added baskets from Target and labeled them with cute little labels I printed out from BHG.com and laminated them with a 3M laminate-your-own-luggage-tag “kit” I found at Target (like these).

Update (11/19/2012) Here’s my “prettied up” picture.  I have figured out a few photography tricks now but still have a long way to go!

I can’t believe how functional this tiny space is now.  It is, honestly, the best thing we’ve done to our house since having children.  I’m in love with it!