The Mudroom & Laundry Room Reveal

Can’t believe that it took me 5 months to reveal another room in the house, since the kitchen. I’m going to blame it on Thanksgiving, Christmas, sickness, kids, and pregnancy…sounds good, right? Our old mudroom functioned for both mud and laundry, but barely. There was not much room for storage or anything else, and coats always seemed to be piled up on the floor or washing machine.

It was a general mess that always entailed quite a bit of time hanging things on hangers. The one nice thing about the old mudroom was it was very bright! Between a window and a door, there was always light in this room.

While we had really wanted to make the room bigger, there was only so much that we could do with the space we had allotted the room. We spent a lot of time figuring out the best layouts, whether there should be a window, and a lot of other things.  Originally, I had wanted an actual closet with a mud bench, the washer and dryer and sink behind the door, a big window, and a lot more things that just didn’t fit in the reality.

I did really want a bench with hooks and a shelf, and that is part of why this post took so long to get up. Matt and I spent a considerable amount of time looking on pinterest trying to figure out just what we wanted it to look like and how we could fit it in the space that we had. Then Matt spent a considerable amount of time building the thing in place, and I spent a considerable amount of time sanding, caulking, and painting the thing {and the trim and door}. Also, a trip to Ikea was necessary to get the hooks that I wanted, as well as some baskets.

Here it is:

The door is Behr’s Scotland Isle {same as the kitchen} and the walls are Behr’s Midnight Dream, the bench is Behr’s Ultra Pure White.

From the outside doorway.

A close up of the bench {I’m still waiting on one more basket in green to show up}. We had approximately 66” of space to work with, in order for the door to still open and have room for the vacuums and mops. After scouring the internet we determined the appropriate space between each hook and how many hooks we could fit. Conveniently, we could fit 7, which just happens to be the number of people in this house {or will be}. The baskets hold the dress up clothes, the hats, scarves, and mittens, and stuff I haven’t decided on yet.

And lest you think my mudroom is empty all the time {haha…just to take the picture a ton of things were thrown in the kitchen temporarily}, here it is with everything back in:

We use a big rubbermaid bucket for shoes. I find it to be the easiest way to keep track of the kids stuff. I try and keep it limited to shoes they need now and only a few pairs. The fact that it’s a bucket makes it very easy to just spray out with the house when it gets nasty. Matt’s shoes go on one side and mine on the other.

The cleaning tools all have their own place, tucked nicely behind the door, and the we have additional hooks on the back of the door, which allows a lot of the bags and heavier things to be out of the way too. I find that heavy bags on hooks doesn’t usually work too well; hooks seem to break or get ripped out of the wall.

The curtains opposite of the bench cover up the pantry and the washer/dryer/sink/shelves. I intentionally did not want people to walk in here and feel like they were walking through the laundry room and pantry. Most of the time they’re open, but it’s nice to have the convenient option to just shut it.

And for all the instagram’ers I did hang up the mirror, just not where I was asking about. It’s there for those that need to primp a bit before walking out, but it isn’t a distraction. I wasn’t too worried about the room appearing bigger or smaller and we didn’t need a place to hang keys or anything, since that happens in the kitchen hallway.

So, there it is. What do you think?