We also live in Florida and are trying to build a mudroom to go along a 14 foot wall. We are currently getting quotes from a number of cabinet makers . For some other great ideas ... check out houzz.com ... its a great website with tons of photos. I built an "idea book" consisting of photos of Mudrooms to help with inspiration and figure it might help if someone else comes across this post who wants to see some other samples lots of mudroom ideas http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/1022333/_trid=ZGJteTtkZWVsYmFpcmRAZ21haWwuY29t/thumbs/Mud-Room Here is a link that might be useful: mudroom pics

I have four kids with a small mudroom. Dh built me a locker system that looks very similar to beagles picture, except mine are white and don't have beadboard. I have a window to the right of ours, so we had to wrap ours around the corner just like beagle. We only have one shelf/cubby above instead of two. Dh and I don't have cubbies, but if we had room, I'd consider it - dh brings a backpack to work that holds his laptop. He always leaves it in the kitchen but wish he had a place to store it! I don't really need one but I suppose I'd use it if I had one. Dh and I keep our coats in the front entry closet. I actually prefer having the dividers b/c it keeps the kids' things contained in their own space so they don't have to look through or sort through their siblings things to find their own. They each have a basket in the cubby on the top of their "locker" that holds gloves, hats and extraneous items. They keep coats/sweatshirts on hooks in the locker, then each has a large basket underneath the bench area (also divided below) that contains all of their shoes. With four kids, multiple shoes, flip flops,cleats, boots, etc, I prefer that they each have their own spot for shoes. As for sizing, our cubbies are 14" wide. Backpacks fit easily, but if I had more space I'd probably have added an inch or two in width. Each cubby has two hooks. I got all the baskets at IKEA - small ones for up top and larger ones for underneath. I love having the mudroom but due to space constraints it's not as big as I would have liked! I guess I'm just happy to have a space to contain all the clutter and yes, mine is cluttered. Try as I might to keep it neat, it's not so easy with four kids! That's why I'm not posting a picture LOL.

nidnay - That is another good idea! A partially closed cabinet. As I thought about it more, I realized that if I was doing formal entertaining then I'd clean out the lockers anyway and put the coats and shoes where they actually belong, so maybe having doors on the lockers really isn't necessary at all. herbflavor - Oh he's going to be very busy very soon! lol, though this will have to wait until the rest of the kitchen is done because my fridge is currently in this spot. I have to figure it out before I can finalize the island plan though. I'm really liking your freestanding chair/bench idea and lockers on the door side wall, because I could stack them and put two wide lower ones for the kids and two high ones for the grownups and get that bench out of the way if we had some kind of gathering where we didn't want congestion there. Maybe some high wall storage on the 4' wall for other gear that seems to end up on my kitchen floors periodically like soccer and swim bags, or my husbands bow because if he's going to practice with it, it MUST be kept by the back door. {insert eye-roll}

My friend had a mudroom storage bench built and for four kids, it is 72" wide (so each kid has 18" dedicated to them. It has 18" drawers under each section for each kid to store their shoes in. Her actual bench part is about 2 ft wide but with the locker on top that takes up 16" there's about 8" of sitting room. On top, she has cubbies going across with baskets for storage. I'm designing our mudroom now but we live on a working cattle farm so ours is a true mudroom :) I'm using IKEA cabinets, though, and will have drawers for kids shoes. There will also be a dedicated open area for the family's tall Muck boots. Overhead storage cabinets will contain baskets for gloves and other randomness.