It’s officially boots, mittens and snow pants season here in Minnesota and my mudroom/laundry room has become an obstacle course. Everyday when I try to make my way into the laundry room I have to step over shoes, coats and hats while balancing a laundry basket in my hands. Most days I am successful but there have been a few close calls.
I didn’t even bother to clean for these pics, this is real life right here.
I purchased this shelving unit thing from IKEA a few years ago for hats, mittens and shoes. Obviously the shoes have gotten bigger and my girls now have more shoes than they once did so they really aren’t working for us anymore. I gave them some baskets to use and you can see that in the mad search for a missing glove this morning the baskets didn’t really work like they are supposed to.
On the other side we have hooks for back packs, purses, sweatshirts and coats. Again, worked great a few years ago but as the books coming home have increased, the hooks have not held up as well. The freshman daughter’s backpack literally snapped the top of the hook off.
We’ve talked about taking out the wall to the right and creating lockers but I don’t know if that would really solve our problems. Part of the problem is obviously that our kids need to pick up their stuff and PUT IT AWAY. I mean put it away where it belongs. Sorry, my mom voice came out there. But we are really tight on room for their winter boots and shoes in that little shelving thing. I’ve been perusing pinterest and my mudroom inspiration pin board but I’m really not finding much. This is probably close to what I think would work best for us.
I really kind of miss our old mudroom with the bins.
So I’m curious people of the world wide web, where do you store kids boots, snow pants, shoes, etc. so it’s not one gigantic pile of crap to dig through in the morning rush? And how do you make it look cute without spending $1,000?
I like your inspiration Ange, and I think it would be totally doable to transform that closet space into something like that. My kids are the worst about ‘putting things up’ so it is best for me to use open storage. Then at least things get put out of the way. Ha! I built something similar to that (with less cubbies) on our entryway wall and it has been wonderful!! Hope you find a solution that works for you guys!
Oh and a bench is very helpful – that’s where the ridiculously heavy backpacks go when I fear they will break the hooks 😉 – not ideal, but better than the floor!
Good suggestions Denise, thank you! Did you blog about your mudroom?