This Wonderful Way: a mud corner.

Like most Southern homes, ours was built without a dedicated mudroom...since a mudroom is technically for keeping muddy and snowy winter clothes and boots for muddying up the house, which doesn't seem to be a problem in the South, but more so in the North. That's your geography decorating lesson for the day. Moving on.

We needed some kind of area to organize our shoes and coats because we were living with this for I don't know how long.

Junky, right? I TOTALLY agree. As my life evolves around the latest pin I've pinned on Pinterest, (say that three times fast), I found the perfect solution to our problem. We would create a mud "corner." Reference mess above. This is the pin I was going on for inspiration...or "pin"spiration for that matter.

So, as the cute handy couple that we are, we set to work this weekend, sans children who were at their Mama GiGi's. Fortunately (or not fortunately), since our budget is tight right now, we had most of the materials already from another project we had done recently.

We, or should I say Johnathan, cut and installed the beadboard and 1x4 molding...I did cut some of the boards.

and now we have this! A mud "corner" that's still in progress...our life story.

Last night I got the first coat of paint on, which is white of course. And I will paint the second and hopefully final coat tonight while Johnathan is at his meetings.

I am debating on a few things for this "corner."

1. Do we want a bench/seating there? I am thinking no. As you can see before, we had a little yellow bench, but we ended up just piling things on it and never sat there.

2. What should we do for shoe storage? I love this idea from Young House Love (my most favoritest blog in the entire world). They used recycling bins from Ikea that work perfect for shoe storage. Here's a pic where you can see the shoes stored inside.

Here's one with them closed and hidden from view.

I love that it will hold a lot of shoes and is really narrow, not taking up a ton space. BUT, with FIVE people in our household, I would need at least two of these, and at 19.99 each, I am not sure I want to pay $40 just to hold shoes...maybe an Ikea gift card for Mother's Day would be in order. HINT HINT. Wink. Wink. This would make my life less stressful in that my OCD-self won't have to look at a pile of messy shoes. Less stress is a perfect gift for Mother's Day. HINT HINT. Wink. Wink.

3. Even though this area is next to the kitchen, it has its own four walls technically separating it from the kitchen and the adjoining hallway. Should I paint the walls a different color? Johnathan would say no way, but I am thinking maaaaybeeeee.

Here's a few other pics I am going on for inspiration for various parts of the "corner."

I love the staggered hooks in this mudroom. This is key to hanging more items in a smaller space.

I love the bright colors, the shelf ledge above for storage of mittens, scarves or smaller items, and the boot/shoe tray of this one. Oooooh, and the rug for sure!