A Crafty Chick: Mudroom Closet

Back in January I was reading my Better Homes and Garden magazine and I came to the last page of the issue. it was a woman who had turned a small closet into a mini mudroom for her kids for less than $100.

I loved the idea and immediately started thinking about how I could do it in our house. I realized that I hated our coat closet that was near the front door. The doors always came off of the runners and it was mostly just packed with junk, while our shoes, bags, etc. were out in the family room near the garage door.

I had a vision and I was on a mission. I would transform our average coat closet into a cute little mini mudroom.

The first thing to do was to empty the closet and figure out where to hang the out of season coats. I found a closet in the basement that was perfect. Then I had to remove the old wire upper shelf. No problem. Next was patching holes from the shelf and painting the trim and walls to match the hallway.

Once the paint was dry I needed to figure out how to make a bench. I searched for plans on line and found a few that were pretty simple and I figure I could build it myself. The problem was two-fold...I've never built anything from scratch before and none of the plans worked for our space and had to be modified.

I started to think about other alternatives to building a bench and realized that one was staring me right in the face. Target has the wonderful ClosetMaid Cubeicals that hold the fabric bins. We have several of these throughout our home. After some measuring I knew that the 8 cube shelf when placed on it's side was a perfect bench with cubbies.

Once I figured out the bench the rest was easy.

I headed to Target and purchased the 8 cube shelf. I also found three adorable white bins with chalkboard fronts that would be great as decor. Then I bought a small rug (to cover the holes in the floor left by the closet door brackets) and an indoor/outdoor shoe mat that I planned to cut to fit the cubes for shoe storage.

Home Depot was my next stop. I bought a piece of White Melamine for the upper shelf and some really cool Silver Celtic Step Brackets to hold it in place. I then got 6 silver 3-pronged hooks for coats, bags etc., 4 Martha Stewart fabric bins for the cubbies and a piece of plywood for my bench seat.

Joann's and Michael's were the final stops for the project. At Joann's I purchased a 47-1/2" x 16" piece of 2 inch foam for the bench seat and some fabric. I planned to take the foam, place it on top of the plywood and wrap both with the fabric and then use a staple gun to attach the fabric to the plywood and just set the whole thing on top of the shelf.

At Michael's I found 2 really cute frames and some potted daisies (fake) for decoration.

I started the project on a Saturday morning. Prince Charming had taken Bug-A-Boo to her French class and then was taking her to the zoo. I figured this would be the perfect time to get this project done. I started by hanging the upper shelf. I knew that this would involve a lot of swearing, cursing and throwing of materials and it was probably best if I did it while Bug-A-Boo was gone.

Finally, after about an hour or so the upper shelf was hung and I was ready to put together the shelf/bench. This took all of 15 minutes and I was cutting the rug and getting things organized.

Due to some traumatic disasters while putting up the upper shelf I waited for Prince Charming to come home and I asked him if he would hang the coat hooks. He was happy to and then it was just about putting the finishing touches on and getting things put away.

I was able to finish the entire project in one weekend and I did it all for around $295.00.

I love how it turned out!