How many of you out there dream of a proper mudroom? [Both hands way up]

I have always wanted a mudroom–a place to put jackets, shoes, bags, mail, keys, boots, gloves, hats, toys, leashes and everything else that seems to live in that in-between space of outside and in.

Since moving to the farm, I’ve learned that a mudroom is a necessity. Because, you see, there’s mud.

A transitional space where the mud (and leaves, grass, gravel, dirt and all of the bits that surround us) can stay is essential. Sure some of mother nature still ends up in the house, but sometimes she stops in the mudroom to look around first.

Fortunately, our house came with a mudroom. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite match up to the vision in my head.

Here are the befores, starting with a not-at-all-weird panoramic image composed of three pictures. At this point, I’d added a mat in front of the door and some boot trays in an attempt to corral some of the dirt. The bench was supposed to give people a place to sit down and take off their shoes. The fact that it was placed in front of the closet was only slightly inconvenient.

The good feature was that it was a big room (9 1/2 feet by 9 feet) with lots of natural light.

There was lots of space in the closet (if only we could access it) although the storage wasn’t as functional as it could have been. At the one end, the shelving was held up with the metal posts people normally use to stake trees. Of course, they were rusted.

The not so good features were that it was all the same flesh tone. And that flesh tone was made up of lots of different textures.

There was the painted anaglypta wallpaper on the closet doors, the pinwheel wallpaper on most of the walls, the painted brick where the addition tied into the original house and to top it all off the popcorn ceiling.

This definitely was not the first impression I wanted to give when people came to my house. And it’s not the first thing I wanted to see when I came home at night.

Stick around, and I’ll show you what I did to fix it.

But first, I want to hear from you. What’s your favourite feature of the original mudroom? What would you do to fix it? Do you have a mudroom? What is absolutely essential in your dream mudroom?