Oh, Mudroom, how you live up to your name. I reorganize you on a regular basis (see here and here), but it never seems to stick. I think it's due to an inferiority complex brought on by your unsightly name. Perhaps if we take to calling you foyer (that would be pronounced foy-yea) or vestibule you would try a little harder to keep up appearances?
This is what I faced in said room at the beginning of the month:
Oh, yes, that's how we chose to welcome guests into our home. "Hello, and welcome to Chaos. We hope you enjoy your stay. And please, take some clutter with you on your way out the door (that is if you don't trip on a shoe and break your neck)."
It only took one morning, really, to clean out all the summer shoes and jackets and hats and assorted school papers and garbage and dust away the spiders and their webs, tidy the shelf, and mop the floor.
And the results? Oh, so much more pleasing.
We added lots more coat hooks and C brought home a pair of end tables from his dad's house that stand in as benches. They work more to define space than anything...I can line my shoes up under one and hide the birdseed bucket under the other. I also switched from a reusable grocery bag to an actual zippered gym bag for my swim stuff, which keeps it much more tidily contained (and perhaps makes me appear marginally more grown-up).
I would like new door mats and some kind of cubby thing for the kids' shoes (rather than a plastic bin), and an attractive receptacle for outgoing mail and my brother-in-law's mail, which comes to our house for reasons unknown to me. I'll keep my eye out, but I haven't felt compelled to hunt for such items. C and I have been riding hard on the kiddos to hang up their coats and back packs and put their shoes in the bin. And, believe it or not, the mudroom foyer has remained reasonable tidy for the last two or three weeks since I straightened it out. Tomorrow, on to the living room (you can get a sneak peek at what that room had in store for me in the second-to-last photo on this page).
Lookin good over there! Would you do an overhaul on my whole house please? It seems that there is ALWAYS a pile to be dealt with and it usually just gets moved around.
ReplyDeleteRaina--Thanks! No way--if I never overhaul another room again (that is, after I finish my living room and basement) it will be too soon. I too have the traveling piles disease (a bit like that solitaire game Free Cell).
ReplyDeleteWe also have a giant pile of books, shoes and backpacks that get dumped at the door. Hurray for hooks, hooks and more hooks!
ReplyDeleteIf I had a mudroom and basement to mess up, maybe I could keep the rest of the house looking better. Probably not, though(:
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