My Very Own Mudroom Makeover Reveal
I am so excited to share one of my very own projects today: My very own Mudroom Makeover, Command Center, and $80 Painted Concrete Floor Project!
Do you have “that” room in your house? Like when you walk into it your happiness factor drops a point or two?
Maybe it’s just me. It might be the interior designer crazy in me, but when I walked into my old mudroom it just made me crabby. It was the first “room” we walked into from our garage into our home so I had to pass through it about 2,785 times a day.
In all fairness to the room, it wasn’t really supposed to be a mudroom. This room started off as an unfinished, unheated breezeway with a plywood ceiling and a concrete floor. But with three bambinos, it was soon adopted as my mudroom. We worked with what we had. However:
Issue #1: There was no storage. Or much wall space for storage.
Issue #2: Because it wasn’t heated, my mama feet froze every time I had to find missing snow pants in the mess.
Issue #3: This happened to be the main walkway into our home. So we had to slosh our way through the shoes and backpacks just to get the grocery bags to the kitchen.
THIS was our before (now you are feeling me, right?)
Breezeway Into Mudroom Makeover: How We Did It
So after two years of living in our house, my time had come! It was mudroom makeover time. So I whipped up a floor plan chock full of storage. Like crazy amounts of storage. But to start with, the function of the room had to be revamped. This skinny little room had FOUR doors, including two giant sliders. We took out both sliders and sold those bad boys on Craigslist. We removed a window to allow for our lockers (sometimes you have to sacrifice one small thing for the good of the room!) We also removed the door leading from the breezeway to the house. Ever had to carry in an armful of Trader Joe’s bags AND a grumpy toddler? Yah, you know why the less doors, the better! It made the room feel SO much larger and truly made it part of the house. We added a new glass fronted beauty of a door so the kids could still run out to meet Daddy in the driveway. We then did the un-sexy but important mechanicals of adding heat and electrical. Plus we drywalled the whole dang thing.
When I create a design for my Postbox Designs clients, I always create a Mood Board. So here is mine! It gives you a vision of what the space will look like.
4 Mudroom Locker Must Haves
Mudroom Tip #1 Give Every Family Member Their Own Locker
If you can swing it, every single family member should get their own locker. If you don’t have the room for that, I try to at least give every child their own locker and let Mom and Dad share. This is the time to be selfish. (As a mom it just felt weird writing that). Keep everyone’s stuff separate!
Mudroom Tip #2 Give the Family Pet(s) a Locker
I know, it sounds like such #firstworldproblems. However, I’m thinking like a practical Mom. We have a beast of a dog, our Labradoodle Jasper. And he comes with a lot of stuff: leashes, big bags of dog food, toys, etc. Because of the way we designed the lockers (read on below), we could use the top shelf of his locker for his meds (while keeping them out of the way of the kids). And we were able to create a spot under his locker for his food and water dishes, so it would be out of the way. I cannot even tell you how glad I am that we can the silly dog his own locker. P.S. Multiple pets can share one locker!
Mudroom Tip #3 Put A Door On that Locker!
Practicality always comes first. You know when you flip through those design magazines and see gorgeous lockers with everything hung at a photo-worthy angle? Mom’s Kate Spade bag is perfect placed with a woven basket full of peonies under it. Do you live like that? Nope, I don’t each. We are messy and my kids THROW their stuff inside their locker. I don’t want to straighten their stuff every.single.day. I want to hide it. So my number one rule was each locker had to have a door. It was worth every.single.penny.
I’m telling you, my most important tip for a mudroom locker: put a door on it!
I’m begging you to do it. I promise you won’t regret it.
Mudroom Tip #4 Make It Easy For Them To Use
If you make something too hard they won’t use it. I knew my kids wouldn’t line up their shoes neatly every day. So instead we kept the lockers open on the bottom and put a basket under each locker. Each person has a basket for their shoes. The kids just have to toss them inside.
Inside each locker is a bench, hooks, and a shelf with a basket to corral gloves, hats, etc. At the tippy top of each locker is a bin for off-season storage. Each locker also has a charging station built into it for each person’s devices. A place for everything.
Budget Friendly Ways to Jazz Up Your Mudroom Lockers
We did build our lockers on site, so I had some flexibility in designing them. I added the trim to the sides of the lockers for a more custom look. This little detail makes it look more high-end. Same with the built-up crown molding to the ceiling. Here’s another design tip: paint-grade molding isn’t a high cost item, but if you layer moldings onto cabinets it gives it a custom look in a jiff.
Add Room for Guest Gear in Your Mudroom Design
Across the way from the lockers is our guest storage. I designed seating with lots of hooks for guest’s gear. They can easily hang their coats and purses here. But I also wanted to jam in as much extra storage into our mudroom design as possible. We added beadboard and I designed some oversized decorative corbels. Did you know that many cabinet shops can build you custom detail pieces like this at a reasonable price? I designed mine, but they had several pre-done options as well.
Underneath are two pull-out drawers for snacks. Above is extra storage for all three kiddo’s school supplies in the fall. In the summer it is filled with beach and pool gear. And can you see a theme in my mudroom design? It is all closed door storage! It is not neat and tidy inside there friends. But it looks great on the outside!
Mudroom Design: Add a Command Center
My favorite part of my new mudroom might be my Command Center. We added a device charging station, a homework drop-off box, and wall mailboxes. A bulletin board keeps all of our reminders in one place. I like L-O-V-E to sort my mail now. Every piece of mail has a home, no excuses for bills to litter my counters anymore!
And need to get rid of that junk mail? This doubles as our recycling center. With slow close doors…I’m in love. We used three pull-out drawers for three types of recycling: Paper, Metal, and Soda Cans. We toss our junk mail right into our recycling center before even walking in.
Get Your Mudroom Organized: Mailbox Command Center
But I think my favorite part are the mailboxes. Just like my rule to give each person their own locker: give each person their own mailbox. Each child has their own mailbox for things like: homework, permission slips, library books, etc. We also have a mailbox for our bills. So no matter who grabs the mail, we know our important bills and notices will go where they need.
I also put a small tray out on top of our Command Center which works as our “inbox”. If the kids have something for me to sign or to see, they stick it in our inbox. And it has drastically cut down on the number of soggy permission slips in the bottom of the backpacks. You know what I’m talking about Moms!
My DIY $80 Mudroom Concrete Floor Makeover
We had to save money on our mudroom makeover somewhere, and we decided it should be the floors. It was going to cost thousands to add tile floors, so I came up with the idea of keeping the concrete floors and just painting them.
Cuz I’m a girl, and concrete just isn’t pretty.
So I meandered down to our local hardware store for a solution. Let me tell you, those old guys thought I was nuts when I told them I needed turquoise paint for my floors. With raised eyebrows they steered me towards the porch paint. So over a series of several naptimes and some Pandora tunes, I hand painted the floors with my new porch paint. Then I added about four layers of clear epoxy coat. All in all, the whole process probably took about 20 hours. But it was worth it. I love how it turned out! It has been almost a year and it has held up beautifully. Because it is hand painted, I didn’t have to worry about it looking perfect, so that took some pressure off!
Want to see the step-by-step process I used for this $80 painted floor makeover? You can check it out right here, along with the list of supplies you will need:
My $80 Painted Floor Tutorial
So here it is again with the floor finished:
Mudroom Decor Sources
My one big splurge was these gorgeous orb chandelier lights from Ballard Designs (even then, I waited until I could get them 20% off!). But at heart I’m a budget girl for my own home. We saved by re-using these shoe baskets we already owned (from Lowes) and floor pillows (from Target). All of my hardware is from Home Depot. And those cute galvanized bins? Walmart, baby! Also, instead of using a countertop material on our recycling center, we used a paint grade top with an enamel paint (i.e. tough paint that holds up to crazy kids!).
My mudroom is now my favorite room in my home. I could sleep in it, I love it so much. So that crabby feeling I used to get when walking in here? It is replaced with joy when I know those lockers are stuffed full of snow gear that used to stay on my floor. Now, if I could just get them to actually get their shoes INTO their baskets….
Free Mudroom Locker Building Plans + How To Organize Your Lockers Guide
But I saved the best for last. Today I showed you a glimpse of our Mudroom Makeover. But I went one step further, I actually created a set of FREE Mudroom Locker Building Plans based off my exact lockers. You can literally hand them to your carpenter to build off of them. Plus I created a Free Guide of How to Organize Your Lockers…I break down every detail of how I organized the inside of the lockers for the perfect maximum use. I seriously wouldn’t change a thing about my mudroom. Now you can borrow it for yourself. You can grab both design freebies by clicking on the image below to sign up for my Free Resource Library.
Free Mudroom Locker Building Plans
Free Mudroom Locker Design Guide
How to Work With Me via Online Interior Design
Need help adding some organization into your life? Postbox Designs is a custom E-Design service. I personally design any room of your home and include goodies such as a Floor Plan, Mood Board, Perspective Drawings, Tips & Tricks, Tutorials, Shopping List & more! But unlike a lot of E-Design services, I package it all up into a beautiful Postbox and mail it to you. It’s interior design right to your mailbox. Then order everything you need for your room over a cup of coffee in your jammies. Check out my website for my Menu of Services. Or email me at kristin@postboxdesigns.com if you want to chat more!
‘Til next time,
Kathy says
WOW!!! What a wonderful creation. You had a dream and made it happen. Good for you. Everything is wonderful but I’m in Love with you floor. Maybe my ugly basement floor( the working side of basement) can get a make over. Thank you for the inspiration to get it started.
PostboxDesigns says
Kathy, Thanks so much! The great thing about a makeover like the floor is it is not very expensive. If handpainting scares you, you can always try a stencil too! If you makeover your floor I would love to see photos-best of luck! 🙂