I sometimes think that all I do online is drool over other people's mudrooms. But unfortunately, I don't have a room, hallway or wall any of the great options could fit in. All that I have is a short hallway that has three doors. Here is the layout:
The opening on the lower wall is the doorway that leads to the family room and kitchen. The space between the garage door and the laundry door was originally the space I had though of for some type of mini thin cabinet, but that didn't work. First, the cabinet would have to be very thin, and it would need some kind of sliding door to keep the clutter hidden. (You can see this wall from the family room and kitchen.) I even built a carcass for it and decided that it protruded too much in the hall and made walking too tight. (That became my son's bookcase, but that is another post.)
The only thing left was the opposite wall where we had some hooks already. It looked awful and didn't store shoes, purses, etc. Here are some before pictures:
Shoes piled up at the door, coats piled on each other and on bookbags, and random things taped everywhere by my son. He loves tape.
The words functional or attractive would never be used to describe this hall. I would see this mess all day long going from my bedroom, the garage or the family room plus every time I did laundry. And laundry is depressing enough on its own.
I really wanted a solution, so armed with this 3 bin chalkboard thingy I found this at TJs (of course!) for 29.99...
and also with 2 years of reading every single board and batten blog post out there, I thought I could come up with something that would work. My very own mudroom in a hall on a wall (very Seussy so it has to be good) or a "mudwall."
After several iterations, here is my plan from Sketchup:
I wanted to see if I could make this for around $100 excluding paint, nails and glue that I already had. Also, I had never used MDF but wanted to try it for this mainly because I found pre-primed, pre-routered white MDF boards in the 2 1/2 inch width I wanted. I also changed the size of the upper sections because I found a 2' x 4' metal sheet at HD, and I didn't want to cut a custom size. This made the other sections larger which really worked better for a standard calendar. (If you look closely, I bought the wrong year calendar - 2014 - ha!) Being as
And here is the finished project!
I used white hooks for the shoes. They blend in and make it not so hook crazy.
And Jake is thrilled because he has one more place to hide snakes to scare me...
Just a reminder of the before and after
I love this wall! I am sooo excited with how it turned out! My Mudwall (it deserves caps) turned out better than I hoped. Here are some of the details that make it work for us:
- Total cost for this awesome organization was $111.
- The top shelf is just under 7 feet so my 6' 4" husband won't bang his head.
- There are tiny cup hooks painted white above the bins to hold keys so they aren't scattered on the kitchen counters.
- There are 16 white robe hooks on the bottom evenly spaced to hang shoes on. They are just high enough to hold our shoes off the ground, and the white hooks blend in with the wall when not in use. I didn't want it to be hook overload.
- In the summer, the Mudwall can hold beach towels and pool toys right as we come in from the garage. During the school year, it is perfect for jackets, backpacks and organizing homework/school.
- Jake can finally reach all of the hooks unlike the old rack.
- All of our information is finally in one place. Yay!
- The hooks don't stick out enough to catch anyone as they walk around the corner.
I will post progress picture very soon. So we love it - what do you think??
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