DIY Makeshift Mudroom

I don't know about you.....  But my kids bring home a lot of "stuff"!!!  The amount of "stuff" they bring home from school is mind blowing!!!  Even overwhelming!!  So after a month of stacking papers here, and putting papers there...  And trying to get the kids out the door in the mornings with all their "stuff"  I knew I needed a better system!

I friend of mine gave me the idea to make the area below into a mudroom a year before it was converted to this - Awesome Organized Mommy Station!!  I thought she was crazy - but she had the vision - WAY before me!  So kudos to you Amy!!  Now the mornings are a breeze - and all of their "stuff" is kept together!  I have space for jackets, backpacks, shoes, lunchboxes, papers and even hats and gloves!  ALL IN ONE PLACE!!!!  HUGE!!!

If you have kids and do not have an area like this - and your mornings are as CRAZY as mine were - then you are in luck!!!  I am going to help you get organized and maybe not eliminate, but cut down on the mayhem in the mornings!!!

Here is what my hallway between my kitchen and dining room looked like before...  Plain, boring and most importantly UNDERUTILIZED!!!  There was a lot of space here to turn into my Awesome Organized Mommy Station!!! Or as most people call them - A Mudroom....  

I have already hung my laser level in the pic.  A MUST HAVE if you plan on being a DIYer!

So, I knew I wanted a coat rack of some kind!  AND of course, it had to be as inexpensive as possible!!!  So I went to Hobby Lobby to see what they had....  I really wasn't that impressed with what they had, so I went to my next source of inspiration...  The Antique mall!  

***Before starting a project, get inspired!  Find pictures on the Internet, or magazines with items you LOVE....  Then head out and start looking around for what you loved and your imagination will take you places you didn't even know existed!!

As I was walking up the aisles, I came across a pair of reclaimed pieces of wood.  They were both about 6ft long and had some glorious age on them!!  BUT, the guy wanted $10 each for the wood!  I was like, "YOU ARE NUTS"!  For an old piece of wood!!!!????  As I stood there talking to him about his wood, heehee....  He told me that the pieces were from an old barn in Kentucky!!  Well, I graduated from UK and so did my husband - AND my husband is from Kentucky!  So I fell in love with his wood - even more!!!

 I then noticed the bench in the 1st pic..  It was narrow and almost as long as the pieces of wood! He wanted $50, AND it was from KY as well!  I knew I had to have it...  So we went back and forth and I got him down to $35!  And I got both pieces of wood for $7.....  Sold!!!  ($42 the bench and 2 pieces of 6ft wood)

So now I have the wood I need for my coat rack and a bench to go under it!!  I am pretty much set!! So I head back to Hobby Lobby and their hooks are 50% off!!  So I get 4 hooks, each for $3!

Cost of materials thus far:

Wood - $7.00

Bench - $35.00

Hooks - $12

So to make the coat rack - I needed to drill my coat hooks into the wood...  OMG!!  I am terrible at math!  It is so bad - I stood there measuring and placing the hooks for about 45 minutes, trying to get them centered!!  I finally gave up and just eye-balled it!  Ahhhh, much easier!!  Now, once you have the hooks into the board....  You are going to have to hang it!  Keep in mind...  These book bags are heavy!!!!  You will need to drill this sucker into the STUDS!!!  I drilled mine into 3 studs!  If you have never done this before, you will need a stud finder!  No this isn't a tool to find you a hot young man to do this for you.... ;)  This is a tool to find your studs in the wall...  And get your laser level..  To make sure you hang it level...   You can do this!!  But if your stud finder does find you a young hot man to do this for you - BY ALL MEANS!  Let him!!  My stud was out of town!!  LOL

Now for the finishing touches.  I got the Galvanized steel pails at Home Depot for about $12 each!  They go with my Rustic/Industrial look and I just love them!  I got my hot glue gun out and glued some sissle around the top to give it a little more character.  I got the wire basket at Marshall's for about $8 and then the file holder rack at Home Goods for around $20.  This comes in VERY HANDY with all that paper work that comes home!!  It was more than I wanted to spend, but with the vintage wire racks being to 'IN' right now - this was a steal!  I then got the mini chalk board tags at World Market.  

To write the boys names on the chalk board tags, I used a paint pen.  I am no good at that "chalk lettering" and with the traffic in that hallway - I figured this was the best solution.  My other addition is the oar seen here in this picture.  I found this at an estate sale.  It was just a plain piece of reclaimed wood - sawed into the shape of an oar that I got for $10!.  So I used painters tape and painted a few lines on it and added the number "5" to it.  To get the 'vintage' appearance, I just lightly rolled the roller over the board to give it a weathered appearance.  

 

And Voila!  A makeshift Mudroom!  For a total cost of about $100!  You know how I love to do my projects on the cheap!!  

I wanted to add my picture of inspiration that I used to develop this project:

I loved this!  But they wanted $60 just for 1 oar!! and I almost bought it!  But couldn't bring myself to do it... And so I began looking for items to make my own.  Doing projects on your own isn't the fastest way to get things done!  You have to get creative to find things that will work AND for me - also to stay on budget!!  But it is always rewarding to me to know that I did something all by myself! It may not look like the picture from Pottery Barn exactly, but close enough for me to LOVE my new 'Mudroom'.  

Feel free to ask any questions below and leave any feedback.  Thanks!