How is it possible that February has already come and gone?!

This past month has been an exciting one for me. I touched on the importance of having grace for your season, shared how you can simplify your closet using the KonMarie method (here), I talked about how I use the “sort-purge-store-repeat” technique for tackling those spaces around the house that need a quick and dirty re-set, and encouraged you to embrace some budget friendly tips & tricks (say hello to chalkboard labels!) to finally get that pantry organized once and for all (here)!

I wanted to finish off this month with a post about creating a welcoming & functional mudroom in your home. Everyone loves to see a good before and after picture so I’m going to make sure to include lots of pictures of our mudroom transformation!

Our mudroom basically consists of an L-shaped hallway with our small powder room on one side and our command station/laundry room/ pantry on the other side.  As I mentioned in my command station post (here), we turned what used to be an open “coat closet” into a more functional space to hold all of our outdoor gear (hats, scarves, gloves.. etc).

“COAT CLOSET” BEFORE: 

COAT CLOSET TURNED COMMAND STATION AFTER: 

The bulk of our coats ended up in our front closet.  I simplified first, by donating all of the jackets that we no longer wear and then hung the rest.  Now most of our jackets are tucked away neatly and out of sight but are also close enough to grab quickly and easily as we are heading out the door!

FRONT CLOSET: 

Before our renovation, the mudroom felt dark and there was a lot of “unused space.”  The small set of hooks hanging by the window felt misplaced and crowded and the shoes were always spilling onto the floor!

MUDROOM BEFORE: 

We decided to brighten up the space by painting the walls my absolute favourite paint colour – White Dove by Benjamen Moore.  Then Jason added shiplap on the long wall to add a modern rustic lake house feel. Next, we moved the bench and centred it on the long wall.  I went through all of our shoes and donated or threw out a bunch of them and then placed the remainder of them in our front closet.  Each member in our family has 1 or 2 squares in the bench to store the shoes we currently wear on a regular basis.

MUDROOM IN PROGRESS: 

We felt an immediate change and shift in the space but still needed to add some hooks to allow for maximum function in our mudroom. We wanted to have a place to hang the jackets we were using daily and to hang our guest’s coats as we host on a regular basis. I headed over to our local Canadian Tire and decided to purchase 8 black iron hooks for the long wall.  Then, Jason got to work measuring and drilling the hooks in place.

MUDROOM AFTER: 

The mudroom is one of our favourite rooms in the house now!  It has become an organization powerhouse in our home.  We have a place for everything and everything stays in its place!

  • The kids can hang up their own jackets & backpacks and grab their shoes from their cubby in the shoe bench.  Ava is in the habit of sorting her outdoor gear (hat, gloves, scarf, etc) as soon as she gets home from school and puts it away on her own in the command station.
  • When we have a houseful of guests, we hang all of their coats on the hooks in the mudroom and place purses on the bench.  It makes hosting a breeze!
  • Mail & school forms are dealt with & sorted into the inbox or outbox in the command station so that piles of paper don’t collect on the counter in our kitchen.

I recently purchased 3 OTTAVA pendant lamps to add some lake house charm to this space! They are very reasonably priced at $59 each and I love the combination of aluminum, brass and glass!  Jason will be putting them up this week and I’ll make sure to add a picture on my IG feed!

Now, what do you have to look forward to in MARCH?!! I’m going to kick off a “Spring into Organization Series” and cannot wait to talk about some of the schedules and routines we have in place, menu planning tips & tricks, go-to technology tools for organization, how to add fresh Spring decore into your home (even if it is still snowing outside!), and there will be a feature room transformation as we are currently creating Ava’s big girl bedroom! I hope you will follow along and invite some friends to spring into organization this month over at Organized With Kids!