An empty entryway gets transformed into a beautiful and practical mudroom with simple furniture pieces and budget decorating.
Want to see more room reveals? Check out my home office desk, my office sitting area, and the nursery.
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We finally have an entryway to our home! I can’t explain how good it feels to finally have something that works for this space.
If you remember, this space next to the door to our garage was pretty empty for a long time. This is technically the entry to our home because we always come in from the garage.
It’s been pretty much useless to us since we moved in because the door opens up into our basement room where my office is. There’s no place to come in, store your bag, coat, or shoes. In general, there’s no real “mudroom” area for our home.
Over the years, we tried adding some entryway furniture to act like a drop zone when we came in our home. But nothing ever really worked here.
That’s when I came up with the idea to create a mini mudroom along this wall.
I wanted a space where we could come in, take off our shoes, hang up our coats and bags, and also have a place to set down mail and other things. I don’t know about you, but I always feel like I’m carrying a thousand things when I come into our home.
I needed a system and a place to store “all the things.”
If you missed the design plan for this space, you can find it here. It will show you all of my ideas for this wall.
Here’s what it looks like now that we’ve installed everything and decorated the space.
Mudroom and Entryway Reveal
The most important part to this space, in my opinion, was the bench. Before, we had nowhere to sit down and take off our shoes when we came into the house.
Now, we have this beautiful spot and I love it!
Ben built this modern bench from white oak wood. I wanted a minimal design that had room for storage underneath.
Speaking of that storage space, we desperately needed space for our shoes. I tried a bunch of ways to keep them organized in the small closet down here but nothing ever worked for us.
I saw this idea years ago to keep open baskets for each family member where they can throw their shoes and store them away.
I got a big basket for both me and Ben (I’ll worry about Nova’s shoes when she’s actually using them).
Now it’s so much easier to keep up with our “system.” Instead of just leaving our shoes out all over the basement, we’ve trained ourselves to toss them into the baskets. We each keep our most used shoes in the basket and can swap them out for the different seasons.
Above the bench, there are now 3 simple hooks.
Right now, I keep my purse on one hook and the diaper bag on another. We also hang up our keys here.
When the weather gets colder, we’ll keep our most used coat here too.
I love that we each have our own hooks to keep things organized. It’s so nice to have an easy grab and go place to store items we take with us the most when we leave the house.
Next to the bench, we added an IKEA cabinet with some drawers to act as a command center. Ben built a white oak top for the cabinet to match the bench.
Above the cabinet I added this pretty, neutral bulletin board to complete the command center.
Inside the drawers, there’s room for incoming mail, as well as a trash can for junk in the bottom pull out drawer. I also keep blank cards, envelopes, pens and stamps in here.
We also keep some random junk-drawer type items here, like batteries, command strips, and packing tape. It’s nice that everything now has a place inside the command center cabinet.
I envisioned using the bulletin board to hang up important paperwork, kids art, and other family documents as needed.
Right now, we don’t have a lot of those, so instead I’m using it to display some cute family pictures. I also have a calendar and a weekly planner posted up there to keep us organized.
Next to the cabinet, I added a full length mirror. I love the detail in the frame. It’s the perfect spot to check yourself before you leave home.
To finish the space, I wanted to add a shelf above the entire area.
Originally, I thought I would include some more storage bins up here. But, I ended up using this as a place to decorate and welcome people into our home.
The centerpiece is this DIY welcome sign that I made a while ago. It’s perfect for the entryway.
I gathered up some other decor items to complete the shelf. And I even added a real plant on the side.
I love how it looks and I’m excited for it to grow and drape over the edge a little. I just hope I remember to water it!
I cannot believe we finally have an actual entry to our home! It’s amazing to see the before and after.
The big lesson from this space is that you can do so much with a small space.
You don’t need a full room makeover to make an impact in your home. We basically just had one small wall and we turned it into a whole mudroom and entryway.
Challenge yourself to try something new and make a change to your home, even if it’s small. I promise you will be so happy you did.
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You can shop any of the pieces in my small mudroom and entryway by clicking on the buttons below.