A Mud Room at last!! (with baskets, a bench, and storage galore!)

This little project was very long awaited....

Like about 4 years! or thereabouts ;)

The lower level of our house is not exactly well-planned. It's more like someone finished it a little bit at a time, with no thought about how it would all flow together. It just doesn't flow at all. It's made up of little narrow hallways and funny little alcoves. There is no proper laundry room....in fact, up until a few weeks ago when we made some much-needed changes, the dryer was in an alcove at the front of the house while the washing machine was about 20 feet away at the back of the house. I can't begin to tell you how annoying this small "design flaw" can be. Let's just say, there have been a lot of dropped socks and wet clothes along the path between the two. 

Anyways....long story short.....we got a new stacked laundry set, which fit in perfectly where the old washing machine was sitting, and freed up a wonderful little spot for a much-needed mud room area!

It has literally changed my life.

Dramatic, I know.

But seriously......there is nothing more disheartening than arriving home to a front entrance choc-full of  random coats, boots, hats, mittens and umbrellas, with no place to call home. 

Oh...but now........now we have a little place for everything.

sigh.....

...one happy mama ;)

We wanted to do it all on a pretty tight budget, since this is not exactly our "dream house", and there's not a lot of point to adding a fancy built-in unit.

So.....we hit up IKEA, and bought the Hemnes TV bench (which works just fine as a storage bench....we *were* going to cut the legs down a bit to make it a little lower, but we forgot to do it before it was all put together, and decided to just try it as it is) So far...so good :)

We also got a cheap little tall/skinny Billy unit, and added a half-glass door. It works perfectly for holding baskets filled with little hats, as well as kids boots and not-so-frequently worn shoes down on the lower shelves (hidden from sight).

The two drawers in the bench hold the boys' shoes (the ones they wear all the time).

 I added some new drawer pulls from Antropologie to give it a little pop of colour.

Always a boy or two up in my business while I'm trying to take photos :)

The other side of the mud room has another little alcove, with a spot that fit the Expedit unit perfectly. This is MY spot. All mine :) I know it's not much, but it's all I need for my everyday stuff.

Everything else is in the front entrance closet.

Then there's the question of what to do with the beautiful big doors that open into Dustin's office.

I'm contemplating painting them yellow. A gorgeous buttery yellow.

Or maybe turquoise.

Or just white.

They're in pretty bad shape (looks like a dog was going wild in here at some point!), but they're old, and cool,  and unexpected in our house. And I love them.

Two crazies and a tripod. 

Oh the fun that can be had ;)

This is my inspiration for the doors....what do you think? Too much?

So happy, thought, right? :)

photo: Anna Kern