Mudroom

One of the items at the top of my Wishlist for our home was a mudroom with cubbies. The house we were looking at had a decent-sized laundry room, but with the kitchen, master bath, and entire first-level flooring renovations at the top of our To Do list, mine was more of a Wishful Thinking list. 

It definitely isn't a must-have, but when you have three young kids in school it seems to me a very efficient use of space. Here is a shot of the laundry room while the previous owners were still in the house:

Fortunately, since we were having so much demolition and renovation being done before moving in, our contractor made it attractive enough for us to have a few more cabinets removed, specifically, the eight by the garage door:

We spoke with the gentleman who was installing our baseboards to see how feasible it would be to have cubbies installed. He, too, made it very attractive for us to do cost-wise. Even if it cost twice as much to do, I knew it would be one of the best used spaces in our house. Here are a few examples that helped narrow down what was feasible for our small space as well as our preferences:

Top Left: A flat wall of hooks would make our small area more spacious, but I wasn't crazy about the look.

Top Right: Love the idea of locker doors for a clean look while hiding everyone's stuff, but with as much use as my kids would get out of this space they would be sure to wear the hinges out in no time.

Bottom Left: Love open cubbies. Much like open shelving, I think they have such a nice look to them. With attractive hooks, the accessibility and ease of use for my kids is a bonus. Would want to use the bottom area below the bench for shoes, though, so while drawers give a nice, clean look, I don't like them enough to go through the trouble of cleaning them. 

Bottom Right: I like how the cubbies go straight to the floor. They make the area for shoes easy to clean as well as easy for my kids to slide their shoes into. 

After having them built, I primed and painted the cubbies the same color as the rest of the laundry room cabinets (more work than I thought!). I decided to use oil-rubbed bronze fixtures for a change from the kitchen where I used chrome. It has easily become one of the most used and most loved spaces for the family:

The bins are used by the kids for miscellaneous things (i.e. their Bible for church). Since the cabinetry is white, I thought I'd add some color by painting the door to the garage. 

Before:

And now:

It brings such a freshness and brightness to the room whenever we go in and out of the garage. As soon as the kids come in through the blue door, their jackets and backpacks go straight to the cubbies so I don't have to see them all over the house. Win win! :)