In my experience, adding paint is usually as easy, if not more so, than properly adding a coat of varnish---and if you are referring to polyurethane type varnish----paint is much easier. Plus, if you were to use an alkyd paint(more water/moisture resistant than any varnish), the frequency of recoating is much longer, due to the durability of the paint. Now, applying alkyd paint is more difficult---about half again as much as regular paint. Advantages would far outweigh anything else for me---and I have used alkyd paint often for customers for bathroom wood cabinets I built or bought.

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.

I know cubbies look really cool, but is it a look at the expense of practicality when you have a limited area? As mentioned above, ability to sit seems to be key and will be hampered at least somewhat by the cubbies. If there are dividers above the hanging area for baskets and below the sitting area to keep shows/boots separate, can you get the hanging space you need by staggering hooks on one large un-cubbied wall between them? My boys are grown but I know every attempt I made to create organization for them that met MY design standards failed! In our family coat area I managed to get them to use their own baskets for hats and gloves but the hooks were up for grabs - finally admitted defeat and let them hang their coats where they wanted. Also, since the baskets are so high, will they be usable by kids? I don't know how old yours are, but would making a vertical stack of basket cubbies work? Little ones can reach the lower baskets and parents can reach the higher ones. Same thing for shoes - vertical storage and adjustable shelves could net you a lot more. If those two vertical unites flank the hook hanging space, you have basically created one large hanging cubbie and still have the sides of the shoe and basket storage for more hooks. Make sense or am I clouding the issue?

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.