11 Tips and Tricks To Revamp and Organize Your Mudroom

If you come into your house via the side or back entrance, you’re likely well-acquainted with the mudroom, a small entry hallway where your shoes and jackets usually go. And of course, a clean and organized mudroom can do quite nicely upon the front entrance too.  A mudroom is a useful feature to have in a home to keep the dirt of the outside from coming inside, and to keep shoes, jackets, bags, and umbrellas from making the home cluttered.

But as time goes by, you may notice that your mudroom is starting to look tired and disorganized. That’s hardly surprising, given how people go through it multiple times a day. In the back and forth rhythm of everyday life, it can be difficult to keep everything organized and good as new. A mudroom also doesn’t have to be out of touch with the rest of your interior design efforts. There are several ways to transform your mudroom into something more modern, as well as more organized.  

1.Make It Contrast

The quickest way to strip your mudroom of its beige blandness is to inject some color. This is probably one of the easiest improvements you can make since it just involves repainting the walls, and perhaps adding a colorful rug or two. For something that brightens up the room, aim for a Mediterranean coastal theme. This lets you keep the bland whites that dominate most mudrooms, but add bright accenting in blue, red, or both. That means less work for you in your quest to revamp your mudroom.

Bringing In a Theme To Your Mudroom for Contrast and Character

2. Spruce Up Your Bench

If you have a bench in your mudroom, it’s almost certainly a bare featureless wooden plank that’s uncomfortable to sit on for longer than a few minutes. One easy way to improve your mudroom is to change that by adding an upholstered cushion with a color scheme of your choice. These can easily be made to order and designed to fit your mudroom bench snugly. This is an affordable way to inject some color and comfort into a space that lacks both of those qualities. For the best results, have your bench’s upholstery match your mudroom’s interior design theme.   

Mudroom Seating Ideas for Both Comfort and Functionality

3. Give It a Theme

The mudroom is often one of the more bland parts of the house because it tends to be overlooked in the design process. This is partly because of the mudroom’s utilitarian purpose. It is, after all, mostly just for storing shoes, coats, and jackets. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t add an aesthetic touch to this space. While the mudroom is indeed a place you may not spend much time in, it is a room that you will pass through multiple times in a day. And sometimes it may be the first part of your house that guests see. As such, it’s a good idea to give it a nice theme making it bright and inviting.  

Mudroom Themes for a Unique Interior Aesthetic

4. Declutter with Horizontal Mudroom Storage

Because of how small most mudrooms are, they tend to feel pretty cramped, especially if they lack any natural light coming into them. This can be made worse if your mudroom is filled with coat hangers, shoe cubbies, and a bench. To minimize that cramped feeling, the best thing to do is remove this bulky furniture and invest in sleek horizontal mudroom storage options.

In short, forgo the coat rack and replace it with some coat hooks on the wall. Likewise, replace your mudroom storage cabinets with floating cabinets that are wall-mounted. That leaves you with plenty of space for a bigger bench and a more airy mudroom. 

Creative Storage Ideas for Mudroom

5. Rustic ‘n Retro 

Another way to work with the simplicity of your mudroom is to go in a more rustic and retro direction. By bringing the farmhouse aesthetic to your mudroom, you can give it a look that is both simple and charming. This fits the utilitarian character of the mudroom perfectly, giving off a relaxed vibe.

Even if your house is in the heart of an urban cityscape, a farmhouse-style mudroom will transport you to the quiet and serene fields of the countryside every time you walk into your house. An easy way to create a farmhouse mudroom is to put in rustic hardwood furniture such as benches and open cabinets. This will help with making the mudroom feel more open as well. 

Balancing the Modern with the Classic In Mudrooms

6. Bring in The Washing Machine 

Since the mudroom is the part of the house where dirt is contained, it makes sense to also make it the center for all your dirty clothes. This is a good solution for those that can’t find space for a standalone mudhouse or laundry room. By creating a mudroom laundry room, you can save space and make your mudroom even more useful and versatile. The main challenge with setting up a mudroom laundry room is of course space.

To prevent things from feeling too cramped, it’s recommended that you use a light color palette of whites and light blues to keep the space from feeling too small. If you plan to bring your washer and dryer into the mudroom, be sure to maximize your mudroom storage space with plenty of cabinets and spaces where clothes baskets can be stored out of the way. 

Modern Mudroom Essential Furniture and Equipment

7. Create Continuity

Think about how the mudroom's style will complement the rest of your home's decor before you make any major changes to its interior design. The ideal mudroom design would be one that flows naturally from the rest of the room, so that visitors never notice that they've entered a different area.

That doesn't mean the mudroom's decor has to match the rest of the home, but it should have certain colors and themes in common with the rooms around it. This way, the mudroom complements the aesthetics of neighboring rooms, which in turn complements the decor of the mudroom. 

Don't Neglect Your Mudroom When It Comes to Your Home's Visual Design Journey

8. Have a Mudroom Closet

If you're so short of space that you can’t have a full mudroom in your house, this is the next best thing. An oversized mudroom closet or ‘mud closet’ can be equipped to store shoes in the bottom and coat hangers towards the top. This gives you the space you need for a mini mudroom, and might even give you enough space for a bench or small stool so you can take your shoes off with ease once you enter your house. 

Gorgeous Mudroom Closets for Sleek Organization

9. Let in The Light

If it’s possible, consider putting in a window for your mudroom. If your mudroom already has a window, look into whether it can be made bigger. Both of these solutions can radically improve the bright and airy feeling of your mudroom. Natural light works wonders for improving the feeling of a room and making it more attractive.

If you can’t bring in natural light, you can still improve interior lighting with some bright LED lights. You can even add accent lighting to furniture in your mudroom to light up the space and improve your mudroom’s aesthetic. This is especially useful if you’re aiming for a modern mudroom look. 

How to Implement Natural Light Into Your Mudroom

10. Use Outdoor and Indoor Mats

Instead of going to all the trouble of running water pipes into your mudroom for a sink, you can contain dirt pretty effectively with just two-floor mats. Have one mat outside and one inside so that the dirt on people’s shoes is captured before it ever makes its way into the house. When the mats become too dirty, just toss the indoor one in the washer, and rinse off the outdoor mat with a garden hose.

Once they’re dry, all that’s left to do is put the mats back. If you live in an especially snowy or muddy area, a boot scraper is always a handy tool to have. So long as you use it regularly during the dirtier times of the year, you can keep most of the outdoor grime and muck out of your house. 

Protect Your Mudroom Flooring In Style

11. Don't Add a Sink (Unless You Really Want One)

Quite a few people will tell you that adding a sink to your mudroom is an excellent idea because it gives you a way to “contain a mess to the mudroom”. On its face that makes sense since a sink allows you to wash things easily and therefore you’d want one right there in the mudroom. But aside from the fact that installing a sink might require you to pull a permit, a sink in your mudroom might actually make a mess worse by adding water to the mix of dirt and dust. 

In other words, a sink could literally turn your mudroom into a room full of mud as water splashes around, which really isn’t ideal. Unless you live out in the sticks it’s pretty unlikely that you regularly return home with thick layers of mud caked to your shoes and hands so you usually won’t need a sink. In most cases, there are better ways to clean things up without the use of a sink.  

Reasons You Should and Shouldn't Have a Sink In Your Mudroom