small mudroom? heavy sigh....it is the size of my entire kitchen! sorry i can't help. :)

I'm trying to remember, but I think you have actual mud, right? Or at least all kinds of outer wear and boots and stuff? This is a heated room inside, right? Not a porch kind of room?

Before they were available as premade units I saw the locker style in a magazine and thought it was particularly clever. It had a lot of detailing with hooks plus a small hanging bar in each section, there was a wide bench in front of the hanging area with a bright cushion, and drawers underneath that went the whole way back. There were ventilation holes in the drawers so they wouldn't get musty, and they had a dry section for house shoes, and a section with a kind of spiky bottom to be a drainer for outdoor shoes. There were also cupboards above the lockers for extra/seasonal gear.

If you're the kind of family who slowly take off coats and hang them properly on hangers, that coat closet might work, but where do wet things go so they dry and don't get other things wet?

I'd think hooks for wet coats, a drip tray (with a drain?) for wet umbrellas, a boot scraper and shoe/boot dryers, plus little cubbies for hats, scarves and gloves, would be a good start. Also pegboard or cabinet space for sports equipment, and a surface to put equipment and shoes on for cleaning and polishing. Does tack wander into the house as well? More hooks?

Add backpack/briefcase storage, a charging station, a key keeper. Maybe a message board.

With all of that, it's important that the horizontal surfaces aren't attractive dumping grounds. One of the brilliant things about the bench integrated in front of the lockers is that you can't get into the lockers if there's crap on the bench. Perhaps make a cleaning/polishing station with a drop down surface, with storage for polish, cleanser, saddle soap and rags behind. Then it gets closed instead of acquiring unmoving crap.

It also might be useful to have some pegs for grab and go out jackets, if you have different ones you use around the yard than you wear for school/work.

I agree that it's a generously sized mudroom, and gives you plenty of scope to make it function really well for you.

Is this the main family entrance and exit into the house? A mudroom would function best in that location otherwise you walk thru the house with wet and muddy shoes, coats, etc. I like the idea of each person having a "locker" with hooks.

I'm in the process of designing our mudroom. On one wall each person will have their own "locker" for coats, gloves, hats, backpacks, etc. I will use Ikea tall cabinets and raise them off the floor and cut them a little shallower. Each person's clutter can be hidden behind a door. Under each cabinet will be a rolling bin for that person's shoes. If the bin is full shoes have to move to their bedroom. I have 12" space on that wall of lockers to add shelves. Each person will get a shelf with a basket for small items - their keys, sunglasses, etc. I will also include an in/out shelf for me and the kids. Permission slips, lunch menus, notes home will go into the in box and each child will have an out box for signed items going back to school. I will have another area for wet boots and coats and guest kids stuff (Adult guests use the main entrance but kid guest usually use the mudroom entrance). I will have a tall cabinet for brooms, mops, etc. for the kitchen and a space for my cookbooks. My mudroom is 6' by 12' but has 4 doors and 2 sidelights. It's not done yet but it sure sounds like it will work and reduce the clutter.

You definitely want a bench in the mudroom and if you have space a sink is nice.

It would help to have information about your family.

I am puzzled about how this room fits into your floorplan. Will the normal entrance and exit to the house be through the screened porch? I think of a mudroom as someplace you stop to put away outdoor clothing on your way into the house.

Where is the garage relative to the mudroom?

I like the suggestion about hooks for coats and cubbies for shoes.

Way way way back when, I used to post a lot. Our build got put off because we bought some coastal property and we have to build there before we can build our primary residence here. FINALLY starting coastal build in October !! At any rate, I had a geocities account where I would keep pictures of mudroom lockers and that web address was passed along from member to member for a long time. Then Geocities closed. : (

I have now loaded my collection into photobucket and have lots of mudroom pictures. I have collected over 60 pictures so far.

One at a time ... http://s1006.photobucket.com/albums/af184/mudroomlockers/?action=view&current=ideas-mudroom_lockers_00.jpg

As a slideshow ... http://s1006.photobucket.com/albums/af184/mudroomlockers/?albumview=slideshow

Hope this helps !!

babushka (love your screen name! we call all our AA lux patients babushka's - see cuteness below): Small I guess is a relative term. I feel the space is small due to the location and sizes of all the doors/windows, which leaves me with little actual wall space in which to accommodate said cabinets, lockers, closet, etc. Which is why I really need help determining the layout of this super-important room.

plllog: Yes, we have actual mud. And... bugs, which is the real root of the screened porch/door location question. We live in a swamp - literally - and at night it is impossible to open the door and enter the house without hoards of flying insects barging inside with us. It is a constant battle 9 months of the year. That's one reason it would be nice to have the main door coming from the screen porch. OTOH, it might be a PITA to have to open 2 doors every time we enter. So I can't decide best placement of this door.

The architect also deleted the closet in the FR/kitchen where I had planned to store brooms and vacuum so now I have to plan a place for them in the mudroom, I guess. I like the closet idea to hide the clutter, but you make a good point about wet things, AND horizontal surfaces being a dumping ground. So true!

bostonpam and eastbaymom: Yes, this will be the main family entrance. No garage - or at least, it's too far away from the house to count, so it's not really a factor in the location of mudroom. We currently have 3 tall cabinets (each 18" wide) in the hallway which were intended to act as "lockers" for coats, hats, backpacks, etc. They are not wide enough or big enough to hold everything I try to stuff in there. The hook inside will only hold one fluffy coat. So backpacks, boots, skates, large coats, etc, end up on the floor in front of the cabinets. My family are slobs. :-) And we are a shoe-free household. The litterbox and all pet food will have to be stored here as well.

So, any specific ideas about placement/layout in this room?

And OT, here's one of my cutest babushka's:

Here's just an initial thought...

Have the doorway directly across from the entrance to the kitchen, and make it a pretty divided light door. That way your view from the kitchen is nice with some natural light (and you won't see the shoes, boots, etc.) Then you could eliminate the door between kitchen and mudroom if you want. A sink out there would be nice for coming in from gardening, etc. Unfortunately your closet shrunk when I put in the sink. So if you don't want the sink, then the closet can go back to the bigger size. On the opposite wall could be the storage bench with cubbies above.

Where do your dog dishes and food go? If the dog bowls will be in the mudroom, then the sink would be nice and you could store food under the sink.

Do you have room for a skinny pullout for brooms next to the refrigerator? (I think that's the fridge by the mudroom door.) Or, how about in that lower right corner of the hearth room, by the door to the screened porch? There are some threads with pictures of awesome broom pullouts that use only 4-6" of space, and they are attractive because they match the cabinets. Just a thought!

{{!gwi}}

This can be done!

I'm not going to try to draw it because I don't have all the measurements, and I think there are some questions to think through.

First, what is the screened porch? Is it a place to sit and pretend to be outdoors without the bugs? Is it more of an airlock between outdoors and indoors? Is it mostly for walking through? Or is it a real living space?

Same with the mudroom, I'm assuming if litterbox and dog food go in the mudroom, it's on the house HVAC?

Do you have hot and humid Summers in your swamp? Do you get snow/ice/freeze?

Where do the pets (in your rosy vision) get dried off and wipe their muddy feet?

Just from what you've said so far, I have a couple of potential ideas. If the porch is more walk through than entertain in, an idea would be to do this as a two stage process. Have a peg wall in the screen porch on the wall where the door to the mudroom is for heavily wet stuff that needs to air out. Or have a coat stand or two. Also a little unit with old towels and a hamper for drying hair, feet, dogs.

Inside the mudroom would be house shoes with whatever kind of containment you can get your family to use. Under a bench, in cubbies, in drawers, in pullout trays. Better to have a less beautiful option if it actually gets used than pretty with stuff dumped in front of it. Use the spaces under the windows either for shoes or pet stuff, letting the tops be your bits of counter space.

Have a tall cabinet with different sized cubbies that will fit all the stuff you can see on your floor now: Enough backpack sized cubbies that everyone can have one, some small hat and glove cubbies, some with a short apron front for balls, skates, etc. That would be on the outer, right of page wall between the windows. Then have the coat closet for dry coats and other stuff on the left of page, with a separate broom closet.

Actually, I can see it with a counter that goes round just below the bottoms of the windows, with trays for shoes under part of it, litter box, wheelies for the dog food, etc., and drawers under the counter, or a shelf with baskets. Pegs or cubbies on the wall above. Broom closet, sports equipment closet and coat closet on the house side.

Option 2: Double sided drawers down the center of the room, hooks, pegs, etc. on the walls.

From your original plan, I would remove the door from the kitchen into the mudroom, or replace it with a pocket door. You need the door into the screen porch and then into the house, so I don't think you'll want a third door.

I would convert the door from the hearth room to the screen porch to a floor-to-ceiling window (retaining the door closest to the top of the plan).

Then I would put the door from the screened porch into the mudroom in the upper left corner of the mudroom, and make it an outswing door so that it does not swing into the mudroom space.

That will give you room on the bottom wall of the screen porch to hang some hooks for wet things to dry on, and a boot tray.

Inside the mudroom, you will need to decide how much you want to do as a built-in, and how much you want to use freestanding organizer items (like the different options from Pottery Barn or the Elfa line of shelves from the Container Store).

One key to get family members to be a little more organized is to give each person their own space. That's why I like the locker/cubby idea so much.

Here is a link that might be useful: Pottery Barn storage ideas

awww, that is one darling babushka and i am a cat person. hope the little one is on the mend soon!

If you truly want the family to go through the mud room on the way to the kitchen then don't give them another access. Kids will take the shortest route possible no matter how well we have them "trained". And also DHs for that matter. This post brought visions to mind of my DH standing in front of the fridge, workboots dripping with mud cause he wanted a beer and no one came when he called! All I could do was laugh as I pictured one of his high powered clients standing next to me watching the show!

So my point is this, if it's truly a mud room for real mud then force entry into it. A sink for clean up is a good idea. The cubbie idea is also good if you don't have too much outwear to deal with. WE put in cubbies when the kids were little, but alas as teenagers their stuff has outgrown the cubbies. WE do live in the Midwest, however, and require multiple coats & accessories. If you climate is warm then they should work fine.

No time to respond to each post right now, but they are all great ideas. I'm going to be studying them all for the next few days and try to put something final together. Who knew that this little room would be the one causing me the most angst in the whole house?

After looking at tons of mudroom photos, I've decided what I don't like about any of them - they are magnets for clutter! And military-esque organization (a la my mother's house - a place for everything and everything in its place) is what I long for in this new house. Ugh. But wait, isn't that what a mudroom is for, really? Containment of all the clutter? So, I guess whenever someone can't find the flashlight, camera, USB plug, tractor key, hair tie, field trip form, overdue book, Barbie's left arm, etc., at least now I will be able to just say "Look in the mudroom" rather than launch an all-out Search & Rescue mission of the whole house like we do now. Right? Right?

Anyway, in my photo search, I came across a blog with some great design directions and ideas regarding mudrooms. Just wanted to share it with everyone. Link below.

Thanks!

Here is a link that might be useful: Mudroom design link

Pegboard!!! Really!! Got keys? Put them on a peg. Got a barbie arm? Put it in a pocket conveniently hanging from a peg. Got a hair tie? Peg it! You can paint the pegboard with a pretty color, and even put a frame around it, though it should be a color that doesn't hide the clutter so people aren't yelling for the tractor key while staring at it. There should be room on the wall between the mudroom and the screen porch for lots of pegboard, as well as some hooks for heavier stuff.

Lots of the mudroom pictures have shoes sitting on open shelves. That was my plan too. However, once we got a puppy, we found out how tempting all those shoes are. He's outgrowing the chewing a bit, but we still have to keep the shoes tucked away. I got some covered baskets for the mudroom shelves. I'm thinking of contacting the cabinet maker and having drawers made instead -- wish I had done that from the start.

Just a thought in case you'll ever get another puppy!

You might be able to fit more cabinet type storage in there if you were to give up the window. We ended up with a 6 1/2 by 8 foot space with 2 entryways in our mudroom. During the planning process, we gave up the window and put in a skylight, which gives off plenty of light. It might not work for you, but's it's a thought...

And kayl is absolutely right about access. I am finding it difficult to retrain my family to come around to the back of the house to enter after school. It's a royal PITA. They still want to come in through the garage door which opens, more or less, into my dining room. Argh. Path of least resistance and all that for them. I could really relate to kayl's beer story with her DH! LOL!

Hi everyone! Me again. Here is what I've come up with based on all the suggestions. It seems to work so much better now. Decided to move door back thru the screened porch - pros outweigh cons for us. Please tell me if you see any glaring problems. Thanks!

East wall (to kitchen)

North wall

West wall

South wall (to screen porch)

I love the new idea--the dutch door is too cute!

We recently redid our mudroom and it looks similar. The locker-system is so great, and I love having the cubby holes above and below for extra storage--lots of fun baskets out there.

Look forward to the photos! :)

This looks great! I love the high windows over the closet. Great idea! The one thing the elevation misses on that, just so you have it in mind, is that you will have shadows in that area above the closet because of the directions of the light from the different windows and (I assume) ceiling. It looks like a place a cat could be happy on a cold day. :)

I think the dutch doors are nice too, so you can have communication between the various areas and still have them "closed". :)

Did you find room for the brooms inside the kitchen?

Looks much better!!! If you don't have a desk in the kitchen, then a desk/mail sorting area under the window on the north wall. would be nice.