Friday, October 29, 2010

Mission: Possible?

My latest project (obsession?) is turning our front entry closet into a mudroom. I had an idea in my head, and then hunted around online to find the two photos above that are serving as my inspiration. One of the photos (number two) is from www.younghouselove.com, one of my favorite blogs, so I'm surprised I'd never seen it before.
 
The reasons we need a mudroom are simple: we live in Minnesota and in the winter it's muddy! Taking off your coats and boots in our teeny entry is difficult, and now that we have the little one, we need to sit down to help him put on his shoes. I hate how occasionally we track in dirt onto the carpet because the entry is so small. We have a decent sized entry closet (not quite as wide as these, but close), and up until now it was just a bunch of coats hung on a bar, and tons and tons of shoes piled high on the floor where they're hard to find. I think taking the door down, painting the inside and putting up a coat rack will make it look really nice and be useful to boot (hah, shoe pun!).
 
My deadline for this project: November 6. We're having a small dinner party with four grown-ups and two kids. All of whom will have coats and shoes that need storing! It'd be so nice to have this new system up and running by the time they come for dinner, and it'll be the perfect opportunity to show it off.
 
Here's what's done so far:
-I've cleaned the closet of any unused coats and shoes, and donated them all to charity.
-I bought three storage bins (one for reusable grocery bags, one for mittens and scarves, and the other for miscellany).
-I scored a huge wicker basket to store shoes for only $5.99 at a thrift shop. I was going to paint it white, but I think the natural wicker color will work well with the color scheme we've chosen.
-I picked up free, mistinted paint for the walls in a minty green.
-I painted the door trim.
 
Here's what still needs to be done:
-I need to paint the baseboards.
-Need to paint the walls.
-Need to paint the end table that we are going to turn into a bench.
-Need to purchase a cushion for that bench.
-Need to address the flooring situation. The entry has wood laminate, and the closet is carpeted. And not very well, since a kitty got stuck in there once and scratched it up. I think for now the plan is to tear out the carpet, paint the subfloor white, cover most of it in a cute rug, and eventually buy the same wood from Ikea and extend the flooring into the closet.
 
Between now and November 6 I have approximately two naptimes and eight bedtimes I can work through.
 
Can it be done?

2 comments:

  1. You can do it! You can do it! You can do it! I'm so looking forward to seeing your finished mud-closet.

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  2. Oh this is what my daughter wanted to do to her closet. She got as far as painting it then lost interest. I'll show her this post for inspiration.

    www.DecoratingbyDonna.com

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