What would you hang/put in mud-room cabinets/locker and how would you design it accordingly? (floor, phones)

[home2010]

We have an area from the entrance of our garage into the house that we are tryingt o design a mudroom cabinet for. I live in TX and have typically seen tall beadboard cabinets with hooks or something like that. They look good, although I have never had one and have no idea what it the best way to design them for optimal use.

Since we are in TX, winter stuff is really minimally applicable. For those of you who have them or are designing them, how do you use them? WHat do you put there and what would you change if you could?

[plaidmom]

Originally Posted by home2010

We have an area from the entrance of our garage into the house that we are tryingt o design a mudroom cabinet for. I live in TX and have typically seen tall beadboard cabinets with hooks or something like that. They look good, although I have never had one and have no idea what it the best way to design them for optimal use.

Since we are in TX, winter stuff is really minimally applicable. For those of you who have them or are designing them, how do you use them? WHat do you put there and what would you change if you could?

Kinda like this?:

Brady 4-Piece Double Bench Entryway System | Pottery Barn

We are curently adding a mudroom, so I am thinking about these things too. We are in the midwest though, so "winter" is a factor (coats, boots, mittens).

I plan to use this space for our many many many pairs of running/mowing shoes and garden clogs. I also want hooks for : rain shells, dog's leash, shopping bags. I want the small bench for donning or removing shoes and also as a place to set grocery bags as they are unloaded.

We are including a closet for brooms and mops and a space for a cat litter- box. One of the closets will be plumbed and wired for a ground-floor laundry (ours is currently in the basement) in case a future-owner wants that feature.

We are also including a shallow shelf with an electrical strip for charging cell phones, cameras and the like so that they can be purged from the kitchen counter once and for all!

[home2010]

Great points! Thanks!
Of course in TX, a lot of the winter items are not as used, but still great pointers. Wwanted to mention, we also thought of the charger ledge for cell phones/cameras, but we realized that with the way we use these items, charging them in the mud-room is not a good options for us. As in, they are not only used once we leave the house, but are used constantly in the house all the time, so a more central location worked better in our case. (For cameras, a shelf in study closet has an outlet, and for phone, built-in desk - but they will probably end up being charged by the bedside anyway I find that I always need the phone right beside me!

[GaryH3]

We put an outlet in our mud room for a charger station too, but we ended up not using it. It was more convenient to put that elsewhere.
Something to consider is where to hang wet things. You might not want to hang wet jackets and stack muddy boots and shoes in a nice wood cabinet. We ended up modifying one of those boot trays to put below where the coats hang. It will catch any drips and dirty shoes can be put on it. We can pull it out to shake it off or rinse off as needed.
We use hangers, so our jackets will dry better if wet. We have a closet rod that is only about 2 1/2' long. Our mud room does not contain all our coats. We each tend to use only one or two (appropriate to the season) on a regular basis.
I added a couple of hooks on the sides for the dog leash and wife's purse. Unlike the unit in the Pottery Barn link, our coat area is on the bottom with the closet rod about shoulder high. Shoes can be kicked off and slipped on without having to pick them up.
Above it is the storage area with shelves and cabinet doors to hide the contents. That's where we keep ball caps, water bottles, lunch coolers, shopping bags, extra purses, etc.

[fallingwater]

I also agree. Pottery Barn has great ideas. Also check out IKEA if there is one by you. Welcome to IKEA.com. There is an online catalog. They have tons of ideas with storage. It will be a lot cheaper than Pottery Barn (even though I love PB). Also PB is very popular and many people sell items on ebay. Sometimes if I have my heart set on something and its out of my budget, I can find someone selling it on ebay for a lot cheaper.

[Coldjensens]

We had limited space so I built a tall cabinet with a 2' x 2.5' shelf for each person to put in their shoes, backpack, hat gloves, boots, mitts, etc. the top shelf is mine and no one else can see into it. Each person has a next level shelf based on hieght, withthe youngest taking the bottom (floor level) shelf. It works well. I have to stretch to reach things at the back of my shelf and our youngest has to scoot down ont eh floor to look into his shelf area, but at least he can kick his shoes or boots off right into his shelf.

There is a regular closet next to the shelves for coats, snow pants, karate outifts, etc. We also have coathooks all over the mudroom for the quick deposit of coats hats and scarves. One coat hook hangs right over the radiator and holds about a dozen coats so, in the winter, we can have our favorite coat nice and snuggly warm when we put it on. Then we have a storage bench for occaisional use items that take up too much space on someone's shoe shelf like rollerblades, ice skates, etc.

It works pretty well. We still often have a mess on the floor though.

I am still trying to figure out where to store fishing rods, bows and arrows, paint balls, frisbees, miscellaneous guns or other devices for propelling things quickly, balls, bats, nets, binoculars, etc etc. Some of this can go out in the carriage house (garage), but some of it needs to be stored in a heated area. I wish that I had made a bigger mudroom.