Looks like a great apartment with nice built in storage, even if none exactly at the entrance. Since the primary bedroom is so close, could you just remove your shoes at the entrance and carry them to the walk in closet? You could have a shoe rack and hooks for coats on that interior wall. Or repurpose the linen closet to be for shoes only (keeping your linens in the walk in). Ikea makes narrow profile shoe cabinets that are worth checking out.

I enjoy thinking about mudroom s and entry point to house. Do most family members SIT to remove boots/ shoes? Or just the elders ?! Do you have tall boots or mostly shoes? Taller boots won’t fit under a bench. I have a bench in my garage where I do sit to take off house shoes & put on gardening shoes & ankle boots & then the reverse. About 3 pairs of my yard footwear fit under the bench —4 if carefully lined up. However I most often leave them in front of the bench! I do think family members can be trained— after all, it is entirely appropriate for everyone to recognize and respect the limits of home spaces and furnishings, how our homes have to be cleaned and cared for , and the citizenship that goes with being part of the family. So just reiterating the previous time& motion remarks, so take time to noodle on that and your availabile space & be realistic. For example, all the internet mudrooms show the long bench deal, but in some cases it might be better to have a simple sturdy chair & the boot trays against a wall so they’re very easy to access OR for the mud- keeper to straighten up from time to time. And not to have each member of the family store 5 pairs of footwear each all the time. So honestly you have to think is this for a shoe- free home, or more for a pair or 2 of foul- weather gear, or what. Plus agree with, what do you change into from wet/ muddy shoes— a pair of dry “ outdoor “ shoes, or some slippers? How do kids get dressed in the morning? That sort of thing.

You could try attaching the cover with magnets. You'd need a light cover, maybe opaque plexiglass. If you have the magnets in the right places, you could put 4 covers on, one for each kid. When I wanted my kids to do something and they didn't do it, I'd take a picture of the offense (ie shoes not in cubby) and assign a chore. Usually, it was related to the offense, like saying, "I couldn't vacuum because your shoes weren't put away, so please vacuum the mudroom." This worked well for dishes not in the dishwasher, as it was daily. Although, thanks to automatic cloud storage, somewhere, there are lots of pictures of dirty dished left on the table.

I have the exact same issue and same kitchen design! I decided to extend the counter all the way to the wall, so things don't spill off. I was going to leave it open below the counter for muddy boots. However, yesterday I realized I could have a drawer under the counter to put all the gardening supplies, that get stored on the counter top there currently. This will open up more space for actual kitchen things. That still leaves space for the boots underneath. So now I am pondering the question of...just leave space open for boots to go on the floor, or put a pull out drawer, or....? Have you come up with any good solutions?