Makeshift Mudroom to Survive All of the Snowy Gear

People have all kinds of fantasies, my fantasies include spacious laundry rooms, walk-in pantries and MUDROOMS!!

My dream mudroom! Image via Pinterest. 

I do love a lot of things about our current home, however, with three growing children, not having a mudroom has been a challenge.  So needless to say I have had to get a little creative with where to put things.  

Here is a look at the space we have next to our side entry, which is the entry we use most often:

This tiny space is directly to the right when you walk in. The small door you see on the right is a coat closet, and straight in front of you is the door to the bathroom. 

The coat closet is full of my and my husband's coats, guests coats when they come over, the vacuum, a bag of dog food, etc. Needless to say hanging up three tiny coats in there was not fun nor was it really happening. We were piling them on a bench in the dining room! 

So I knew I needed some sort of easy solution for their coats. On one of my "mom's night out," I was at Kohl's (a mom, at Kohl's?! so cliche, I know) when I came across THIS basket/wall hook combo:

Image via Kohls.com

I initially was only looking for a set of hooks, but I thought that this basket would come in very handy regardless of the season. The only issue was the color. I really wanted it to be black because it would match better with our decor, so I just spray painted it! 

For shoe storage for the kiddos I found a black wire basket at Target for 5 bucks. The small rug is from Kohl's and very inexpensive. I typically change the rug each season.

So is this the storage space of my dreams?! No! But it is a heck of a lot better than before. 

Now jackets, sneakers, and little backpacks for preschool are one thing, but snowy boots, hats, gloves, snowpants...#thestrugglehasbeenreal. 

So what the heck do you do when you do not have a mudroom and everyone comes in with WET gear?

I rounded up some clever ideas from Pinterest that may help...

First, if you have a garage that is attached to the side of your house you could create a cute little makeshift mudroom and even set up a drying rack in there temporarily to hang the snowsuits on.

Here are some cute garage mudroom ideas I found on Pinterest: 

As far as boots are concerned, between personal experience and a little research, some cheap boot trays seem to be everyone's favorite. I also saw that many people found it to be helpful to put some river rocks in them to assist with the draining and drying process.  I sometimes see river rocks in the dollar store, and know craft stores like Michael's and JoAnn's carry them. The boot trays can be placed near your doors. I actually plan on setting one up in my bathroom since it is in close proximity and there is more room in there. 

Boot tray via Walmart.com (under 5 bucks!)

Ok, so you don't have time to throw together the garage mudroom, but could possibly pull off some better organization inside of the house. So how do we deal with the coats, hats, gloves, etc?

If you are like us and have a VERY, and I mean VERY, tight space near your side door, you will need to get creative with your space. If you have a coat closet in close proximity, be sure you clear out the coats that you aren't using regularly to make hanging space room for your winter gear. 

THIS type of organizer can also be handy to hang on the inside of your coat closet to store the additional coats, hats, gloves, etc. 

Image via Wal-Mart.com

Here is another cute example of baskets and hooks that I found on Pinterest. 

Anyone have any other handy tips for dealing with wet snow gear or kids gear? Please share!!

xo,

Nicole