Mudroom Makeover…

     I wrote a post a while back about my Resolutions, and getting organized has been a big focus of mine this year. I want to be one of those moms who makes it look easy, and not the one who sends her kid to school with mismatched shoes!

     Just in the nick of time, I finished our command center/mudroom. School starts tomorrow so of course I waited until the last minute, and finished it all up today : ) I started about a month ago, but just wasn’t loving it. Now, I love it! I just need to add some color, but that will come in time.

     I started thinking how badly we needed some kind of mudroom when I was late for work more times than I would like to admit because I couldn’t find one of the kids’ shoes. One day AL wore dress shoes to Grandma’s because I could only find one of all of her shoes.

     Naturally, I went to Pinterest for some inspiration. Instead, I left Pinterest with depression : ( I definitely found some inspiration, but none that would fit my budget… of about zero dollars : )

This year I am trying really hard to look at my carbon footprint, and have been revisiting the three R’s I learned in school, and then ignored up until now. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Not that hard of a concept, yet still so many of us don’t do any of them. Now that I have kids, I guess I look at the world beyond my time in it. Kids will do what they see their parents do, so we are trying to implement the R’s into our lives.

     I started looking at things around my house that I could use in a different way, and all of the sudden, operation mudroom was back in action. When Fat Dad and I moved into our first house, like most people, we had no furniture. I think we moved into that house with a bed, a broken futon, and maybe a lamp. Luckily, my grandma is amazing, and had almost everything we needed to make our house look a little bit more like a home.

     My grandfather is one of those guys who could build anything with his hands. I know Fat Dad gets irritated with me sometimes cause I’m always asking can’t you just fix that, can’t you just build this??? If I were talking about an electronic, his answer would be yes, but as far as house repairs, and building me the closet of my dreams, his answer is I’m not from the country : )

     So my handy dandy Grandpa built me some night stands to put in that first apartment, and I have hauled them around with us to every place we have lived since even though we actually have grown up furniture now. I couldn’t throw away something that had that much meaning. These weren’t something I could just go to Walmart and replace, these were made with my grandpa’s hands, and some day when he isn’t here, I will always have a piece of him in my house.

    I set them up on our porch with the hopes of adding some organization for mail and such, but instead they were just a cluttered mess all of the time. Then it hit me, if I laid them down, I could use it as a place to put shoes. Then I got excited! If I found something to put on top, I could make a bench, and the shoes could go under it! I could even be a Pinterest inspiration for someone.

     After I tipped them over, I started looking around the porch for other things to repurpose, and, as if by some miracle, I found one of the shelves to our armoire, and it fit perfectly on top of the nightstand. We have our TV in the armoire… I know, no media in the bedroom, but that’s just not us! We were using one of the shelves for the PlayStation along with some games, movies and other random clutter. So I rearranged and took the other shelf out, and now I had a bench, and a place to put our shoes…for free!

     I started the command center at the beginning of the year in the kitchen. I hated it. I never updated the calendar and it’s location wasn’t helpful. Our kitchen is at the back of our house so if you were leaving yourself a note to check while you walked out the door, you forgot it!

Here’s the mostly finished product!

   1.)  The calendar was what I was using in the kitchen before. I love the calendar, but I hated the location. Now, It’s perfect. I can look at it right before we head out the door while I’m grabbing the diaper bag, purse, coats, whatever. It’s got a place on the bottom to pin stuff and the top is magnetic. Perfect to hang things that need to go out the door. In the future, when my budget is more than zero dollars, I want to add some of those sorting bins for the mail next to this. I think I have another Pinterest project : )

   2.) The lady who lived here before us ran her own daycare so there was a wall of hooks under a shelf. Perfect for a lot kids in daycare, not so much for a family of four. I moved them to be right by the door so they were easier to get to because for my kids if it’s not slap you in the face close, they won’t use it!

  3.) These are the shelves to my armoire. I want to get some hinges so they will be a little more stable, but for now, on my zero dollar budget, this will work just fine : )

  4.) These are my grandpa’s shelves. He will be so proud of my creative way to give them a new life!

  5.) I bought this years ago… I think when we bought our first house, and never hung it up. I still need to add some of our pictures to it, and the clothes are only there because it’s JJ’s back to school outfit. Otherwise, it’s a great place to put our keys. I think I’m going to put one of those hooks under there for my coat and purse.

     There you have it, my zero dollar mudroom/command center!!!

What have you done to give something in your house a new purpose??? Do you practice the three R’s??? How do you stay organized???

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