Our mudroom is one of the most used rooms in our house. It is combined with our laundry room so there is always a constant flow of laundry and children in and out of this room. The mudroom is between our garage and the front hall, and when we enter the house it’s through the mudroom.  The last time I posted about our mudroom was almost 2 years ago when we finished tiling. I added a few hooks and a little bit of temporary storage and it looked somewhat like this….

Two years later though, it more often looked like this…

Why a mini makeover?

We had a lack of functional storage for each of the kids, so shoes, coats and bags just ended up all over the floor. I really wanted to take care of the storage situation before we were fully into winter and had all those extra winter clothes out too.

I call this a mini mudroom makeover, because our dream mudroom would have involved actual cubbies, some wainscotting, maybe some colorful wallpaper, and a solid wood butcher block bench. We also need to fix our dryer; it broke and we’ve been using a free one as a temporary solution.

However, we didn’t have the budget to completely redo this room. So I decided to use a lot of what I had and spend money on a few key pieces to make the mudroom more functional. The storage solutions I added to this mudroom included benches, baskets, hooks, and laundry basket storage.

*This post is sponsored by the Home Depot Canada. I received product in exchange for this post, but all opinions are my own*

 

1. How to make mudroom benches

I like to collect furniture from yard sales and just hoard them until I can find a purpose. I found this vintage drop leaf table base and it’s been sitting in my basement for over a year. Rather than buy new spindles for the benches, I decided to take apart this table and use the spindles as legs for the benches.

We also had some leftover pine boards in the garage that I used for the frame of the benches.

For the tops of the benches I found some hollow closet doors at the Restore. They were only $12 each, which was way less than what I had estimated for butcher block benches! Tony told me they might not be strong enough and might break eventually, but for a total of $24 I was willing to take that chance. I lightly sanded all the bench frames and the tops of the benches using my palm sander.

Next I broke out my paint sprayer and gave all the pieces three coats using Behr premium satin enamel in the 2018 color of the year, Blueprint.  This is a paint and primer in one, which I love lately because it saves on painting time.

Next using a level and a stud finder, I screwed the benches into the walls.

The tops of the benches I installed using a few finishing nails.

2. Apple crates for shoe storage

To keep all the kids shoes in one area, I got some plain wood apple crates from Home Depot. I lightly sanded all the crates, then gave them two coats of paint using Behr decorative chalk paint. This paint comes in a lot of different colors, but you can also get it tinted to whatever you want. I had this paint tinted to Behr Watery, a very pale blue.

3. Laundry basket storage

Another problem we had in this room was storing laundry baskets. I decided to build a small storage tower that would fit two square laundry baskets. We had an old Ikea trofast unit that I cut into pieces, and put back together so that it would fit our laundry baskets. I had an oak table top that I also found at a yard sale and never really had a purpose for, and cut that for the top of the laundry storage. I also made a small shelf using the oak for laundry soap.

Now if you look really closely, you’ll see that the top of the laundry storage is not level… I didn’t double check my measurements and never noticed until I had it all built, painted, and installed.  I decided not to fix the laundry basket storage because it’s a somewhat temporary solution for the mudroom. And also, I still call it a win because this was the first project I did that I used the table saw by myself. If you remember from my January goals post, one of my goals was to learn how to use the table saw. This was one tool that I was slightly afraid to use. I’m still not the most comfortable with it, but now I can say that at least I’ve tried, and I’ll call it a success.

4. Lots of hooks and baskets

I took apart an antique dresser and used the drawers to make one long piece of wood on the wall. I filled in some of the cracks with drywall mud, and then painted the entire thing white using Fusion Mineral paint in Picket Fence. And finally, I added two double hooks for each kid, plus a basket above for all their hats and mitts.

The baskets I bought online. They were a bit of a splurge, but sometimes I like to find solutions to my problems without getting any help from Tony. These are perfect for the kids because now they know exactly where to put their mittens everyday.

 

 

Budget friendly mudroom makeover

With a combination of budget friendly benches using material I had on hand, lots of baskets and hooks, this mudroom went from a complete disaster to a functional and organized, hardworking room. The kids have found it so much easier to put their own clothes away,