The No Mud Room Mud Room Solution- Practical AND Pretty!
A room without style or purpose
Our front room has bugged me since moving in- it’s the dining room, but it’s right next to the front door hallway, with very little separation between it and the entry hall. And we have seating in the kitchen, so it’s always been a “whatever” room.
While homeschooling it was a perfect work room. We kept all our jackets and boots in the garage, and I would bring them inside to warm up before we had to go somewhere. We had lots of room to work and spread out.
But once the children started traditional school, I was bringing jackets, hats, and boots inside every morning and throwing them into a pile in here. We were all on top of each other trying to layer up and get our gear for the day. Cue the fighting. Every day. Tears in the morning-- not a good way to head off to school.
Sooooo… we needed a new plan of attack. We needed function, and I created it, but it wasn’t pretty:
A Mud Room/Art Room Combination Solution
I turned our dining room into our mudroom/art room. The hooks are attached to the board, which is attached to the wall in only 4 studs (renter friendly). I took apart the 3-drawer sterilite containers we had and made them all 2 drawers: top drawer holds most often used hats, mitts, etc. and bottom holds extras. And then I spread them out as faaaaar apart as they would go, to give everyone space! Green ribbons for hanging wet mitts. It worked.
But… The wall was all dinged and scratched, the board is too short for the wall, the green ribbons are vertical, so wet things stack on top of each other and don’t dry very fast. The white frames are blah. Everything is slightly boring or not practical enough. Even the art above the window—I love it, but it was hard to access and change up. And the vertical blinds- don’t you think cleaning those blinds is one of the worst jobs on the planet? The table. I love this table. LOVE IT. So to protect it I stapled a plastic table cloth over it. But you know what? The kids cut and pulled/stretched the table cloth, so it was like swiss cheese, and if felt ewww to the touch- all plastic-y. And see this corner?
Clearly a problem. Does this look like the home of a wanna-be minimalist? Nope!!! Truthfully, I didn’t like going in this room, let alone working in there.
Time for a new, NEW plan of attack. Function AND beauty!
Seven hours of online stencil/wallpaper/pattern deliberation (not really, but close?), several texts with my mom and sister confirming my choice, and one Wayfair order later, I was committed to removable wallpaper and revamping the room. YAY!
Not gonna lie… putting up that paper STRAIGHT was hard. So hard that when I was done, the whole far wall was a little drunk looking, leaning into the corner :) So crooked that even Dave noticed… So I had to re-do the whole back wall. I cheated and papered a second layer right over the first layer, and it doesn’t match up where I started and stopped, but it’s *good enough* for the duration of our time in this house!
Here are the bold and exciting results!!!
As you can see, the wallpaper is perfect for hiding all the dings on the wall. I visually continued the wooden hook board with shelf liner all the way around the room. To protect the wall underneath I lined it with painter’s tape. I removed all the small paintings and added one bold painting the children and I made together several years ago. We made it in anticipation of Danny’s arrival, and I often think of all the love poured and brushed into that canvas by little hands and big hearts. I added black tape to the frames of our family coat of arms. Then I swapped the table and Ikea shelf, moving the art and school supplies into the room and moving the table into the entry hall.
Then I addressed our mess of a corner. The printer found a new home in the basement. It’s a great printer, but it’s huge. It’s much better OUT of the room. I purged our rolls of paper and found a better trash can- a hamper we already had but couldn’t use because it didn’t have a lid and the dog was eating our dirty underwear. (Don’t be shocked- you know your dog does it, too! Gross dogs!) The sewing machines are now also in the basement and are easy to access to bring them up when we want them. This corner is much, much better. It could even belong to a minimalist-wanna-be, especially because I purged over 20 items from the room that went straight to donation. Yay me! (PS, I’ll be doing a post soon about our favorite art supplies, and that drying rack is on the list!).
I removed the window artwork and applied this removable privacy film to the windows so the blinds can forever and always be tucked up and away. These 2 changes visually minimalized the window area, which was competing with the bold wallpaper. The best part is the children LOVE the rainbows the window film throws around the room- it’s magical!
The table was restored to how it’s meant to be- NaKeD and beautiful! I can scrub off most of the damage the kids can throw at it, and it’s so nice to work on the real wood. It even inspired me to upgrade our craft caddy.
Nothing drastically changed with the coat area, except I took down the green ribbons and repurposed the window artwork string, hanging it under the coat hooks- horizonal hanging is a better way to dry wet hats and mitts. We used to have one mask bin that everyone rummaged through in the morning, but I separated the masks into individual buckets and put them in their top drawers. When we are done with hats and mitts for the winter we can move the 2-drawer sterilite containers into the garage and hang our mask buckets. Taking these pictures made me realize that even our winter gear is black, red and blue… how funny! It must be so ingrained in me that I buy these colors subconsciously!
One more time, just for fun:
