Transform Your Mudroom

On day three of leftovers for lunch, have a day off. Switch it up with a double cheeseburger for 249 on the McDonald's Savor menu. Leftovers left the chat. Talk about Savor satisfaction. Served from 11 a.m. Price and participation may vary. These are plighted delivery orders. Subject to availability. Hello everybody, welcome to Dear Alice. Today we are talking about the mudroom. Oh man. The hardest working girl in showbiz. She is tired. She is tired. She has wrote hard and put away wet men. She does the most work. She does the most work. Also a point about the mud hall is it's your entry. It's how you come home. If you have a garage, you park that car in the garage, you come in that back door and you land yourself in what we call the mudroom. And we're gonna be talking about that space today because it is so hard working. We've done a lot of these spaces and we wanna give you all of our best tricks, tips, advice, learnings from clients. And we're gonna show you a few install shots we've done over the years to really make the mudroom a beautiful way for you to come home because most people don't gonna come in their front door entry every night. Yep, and the common denominator is we're looking through all the mudrooms. There are three things that every mudroom must have. We're gonna take you through all those things and see how you can employ it. And I think this is regardless of size. Whether you're a small mudroom or a big mudroom, you need to figure out how we can get all three of these things happening for your life to go smoothly. Let's tell them what they are. Okay, you wanna give it away? Just tell them all three. Okay, fine. Storage, we all need storage. You need storage for shoes, you need storage for backpacks, you need storage for the mail, where you're setting that down. You need to have places that have a home otherwise they just get thrown. On the kitchen island. On the kitchen island. Like at my house. Oh man. They're all on the kitchen island. And then nobody knows where that flyer went. Or that bell. Like do you know where that bell is? Or the IRS notice. Whatever it is. You need a mudroom. I think my kitchen island is the mud hall in my house. I don't know why we put so much mail on the kitchen island. But it really is. Like you need spots for this. Otherwise you're gonna be staring at it on your hardest working other surface, which is the kitchen island. So let's get it all at the back door. And not bring it any further into the rest of the house. No, and then I'm gonna one up it because you need storage, but then you have to create a system. We're not gonna get into that, but I have had clients where we have brought in organizers. They're like, so my kids, they bring all these things. And they still get a lot of papers. This one needs to go in this file because that has to be signed by this person. And anyway, there really has to be like an intake and an outtake. Stuff that's coming in and stuff that you have to send the back out with. You know, if you have kids. And I just think in general, just all the things they land at that back door. Yeah. You know, for you to take with you the next day. So you have to create a process in this mudroom. So you have to give yourself an opportunity to have that storage, to have that organization. So storage is the first one. The second one is seating. We need seating. Yeah. We need to place it down, take off our shoes at the end of the day, put on our shoes at the beginning of the day. Even just to say your back packed down on something to unzip it, to pack that lunch to, you know what I mean? You just need to be able to have a surface to put that on. Otherwise mom is bending all the way over down to the floor. Or you're gonna crouch, hidden tiger, crouching dragon, whatever it happens. That one. You gotta get in that stance and you gotta try and figure down your knees and your thighs are shaking. And yeah, just have yourself something to put that back, back down on. I know, cause when I designed my house, yeah, we built some day, I'm gonna have a one hell of a mudroom. Cause right now I am crouching, tiger, and dragon. Yes you are. Trying to put shoes on. Too much. Time, it's too much. It's a full body workout. It's too much. I always tell my kids, I can't help you if you're on the ground. You need to go higher for me. I'm gonna make a plaque. I can't help you if you're on the ground. Get up. Okay. So you need storage. The third thing is just, again, that's a surface. You have a surface in your mudroom. You have this beautiful chest where you have a tray where you keep all your sunnies. It's kind of like this last spot. And remind yourself of the pretty. Obviously you have to have a mirror of something and usually that sits above that surface. If you don't have a mirror, I cannot tell you how many times I would have buttoned my button on the wrong hole. Left the house and then greeted all my coworkers at work looking like a clown. Like you really do need that last look. To get that button on the right hole, to grab those sunglasses, grab the keys. And I always have, I have our little crystal penny lamp there and I leave it on all the time. I never turn it on. So it's like a night light to the muddall. A friend. Yeah. And then if a kid comes home late, that's turned on even though the rest of the house is turned off. And it's a LED bulb. So nothing's getting hot, nothing's scary, but that's on all night long. So a mirror, a great surface to put all your sunnies and all of that. I have drawers in my chest where I can put the mail. I can put the stamps. I can put the thank you notes. You can have organization and all of that, can have a system. Like storage. Yeah, it's a tiny, tiny spot, but those are hard working little spaces that really pack a punch. Yeah, I love that. I'm gonna say the seating and the surface need to be two separate things. Oh my gosh, it's so true. I hate when all of just the stuff that needs to go out to the garage is just on the bench. I'm just like, and it feels like it's my chore. It's a war zone, guys. This is a war zone. Also those are two different heights. Seating of the bench is sitting at 18 inches high. The top of your chest is probably above 30 inches where you can use it to grab your sunglasses and whatnot. Yeah. There's nothing more aggravating than when you do need to sit down, there's stuff all over that seating moment. Or, okay, I'm gonna take it once up further. Not in a mud room when you're getting into the car and your husband or wife are sitting in this driver's seat and there's stuff on the seat that you have to get onto. And I'm just like, you're gonna pick that up. I'm gonna move that. Don't worry, you're sitting there. I'll pick that up and put it on the ground. And then I'll sit down. Anyway, also say, keep the seat clear. Don't put yourself in a precarious situation, guys. Save your marriage. Yes, save your marriage. I love it. Okay, so you're gonna be driving us through storage, surface and seating as a mud haul. Yes, and as I look through all these images, they all have those things. So we're gonna show you how we did it in all these different situations. So our first stop is at Manchester. It's on our portfolio. And this is the one where our client, she grew up going to England. That's where her parents were from. And so this home feels very British. And so it was cool that she wanted to incorporate color in such a big, big way. And that this house, because it had this aesthetic, it was just geared towards that, not necessarily a room for her kids, with like plaques and things for their names on the lockers. It is something that I think as you look at these pictures, that is awesome for this stage and it's awesome for the next stage, which I think is something that people really need to consider. How will this, the longevity of this space hold up? Am I time stamping it with this moment? Or is it something I'm gonna have to remodel in five years when everyone's out of the house? So here it is in Manchester. Here's the floor plan. Again, right here you can see we have the Darling floor plan pattern. So don't forgo that. That's not one of our points, but definitely put a tile if you can. But you can see we have these two runs of lockers that are mirroring each other. And then we ended up putting a center hall table with ottomans. And that's what becomes our ceiling and our surface. Let me show you the pictures. But one thing I just wanted to show you is on this elevation of the locker, this just shows the outside of the locker. One thing for storage is shoes. Some people will prefer like a cubby. Actually an open spot for you to tuck your boots and things into an opening. And some clients will prefer to just have it in a drawer. Some clients say we're gonna actually leave our shoes out in the garage. And then we're gonna come here and that's where I'm gonna have my mittens and my hats and all those things. So you kind of have to understand what you need to store in which space. And so in here we actually have doors underneath these lockers. And lockers have little vent holes so that all those coats and smelly teenagers stuff can air out. Gross, I can smell it now. It's disgusting. But the interiors where this gets really exciting, these are, we have again, mirroring elevations of lockers. And this shows you how we space these out. Four of these were for all the kids. They're backpacks. Guys, I know it sounds crazy, but you, if you're a designer, you want to measure their backpacks, their client specific backpacks so that you can get the exact size for this. You don't wanna just grab that off the internet. They might have special ones for sports or whatever else. And so this is what's drawn in, is the actual backpacks that her family used. Yeah, confirm that. For a child or just say you're always gonna stick to this and that way they know how to shop the next year and the next year and the next year because that's what fits in your locker. There's plenty of cubbies in here. There's hooks inside these lockers, which a hook will go so far in a mud room. Kids are way more inclined to hang something on a hook than on a hanger. Yes, that is for sure. So same, I mean, it goes in bathrooms and everywhere. The hook is like the king. So you can see that we, on the interior elevations of these lockers, we have hooks, three in each cubby, you know, because they might have a hat, a coat, any of those things from their day that they can just park. Then you also have spots for extra shoes. We did do one that had actual hangers with little rods that you could hang and made those storage pieces deep enough to facilitate a hanger. So again, you know how you live, so you know how you kind of have to build out this storage. There's just a lot of thought work that went from a lot of interviews to the client into this elevation. So make sure you do that, designers and homeowners. Just get curious and make sure your cabinet maker knows how to build out those lockers. It's a function of the way you need them to. And then these tall cubbies are awesome just for like baskets of extra gloves, extra hats, extra, you know, whatever you need, sports stuff, whatever it is. If you have the height, use it. And you end up doing the drawers in the bottom, Seuss. Yeah, there's a big pole. And tell them what they like the drawers for at the bottom. Again, this is just for shoes. This is where like people park shoes from their kids, flip flops, soccer cleats, whatever the season is, that's where they put those things. So you have kind of all your top layer and then you have like your shoes down below. Mom and dad know how your kids are gonna react to storage systems. So you design accordingly, whether you're a cubby, but just an opening or whether you're a drawer. Cause some kids would see a drawer and be like, that's cute, but I'm never gonna like actually employ that. So I think that's just important for you to know as you're creating these moments in your bedroom, design it for them. And so we're gonna show you a few examples of ones with cubbies and ones with drawers. And those were all really geared by the family. They live there. But I just love how these turned out. And I really, and this was really lovely. You could have done an island in here, but I'm really glad that we got some furniture in the mudroom. And I think that center hall table is such a moment. Aesthetically, when you look in there, you can see if you have your dog leash in a bowl. You have these two ottomans that can kind of like tuck underneath a table and not take up additional room to be tripped on by kids. But this is where they can sit, take off their boots, put it on their shoes, whatever you need. And that's your surface that again, it's just a little bit more sculptural where you have so much utility happening in the frame of the room. I like that too, because it's less utilitarian than like an island would be. So it kind of makes it feel more home. Especially, yeah, that's the room you're walking into every single day. In 10 years, she might pick up another table and she might be like, this is my style. This is a really easy way to switch up things when things are feeling, you know, stale. Or you're like, I need something to like make me alive again in my house. This is really easy when you, furniture can do that. You have your utility, but make sure you leave some flexibility for great furniture. And our next one is our Linden Art Manor. This one I think is a really, I think one that most of us can relate to. Where you do have just like one wall for storage. What are you gonna do with that wall? And usually that wall, here you can see, we actually need to be our seating and our storage. And here you can see we have cubbies, not drawers below, because she has three boys. And she's like, yeah, they're not gonna open up doors to put their shoes, but they're gonna take them off and then I can just tuck them underneath the bench. They can do that. Anyway, so for storage, she does have lockers for coats. She has cubbies up here where you can, or actual cupboards where you can actually put baskets with all their, you know, hats, snow goggles, whatever it is happening up here. And then a decent amount of seating. With this cabinetry, same rule applies, take it to the ceiling. And I like right here, you just like fur down a soffit to bring that to, which is great. Which is smart. I think this is often a formula that people love, which is the bench and then the hooks above it. So you can easily see that the little guy could come, sit down, pull on those winter boots, reach up, unhook his coat, grab his backpack out of the cupboard. So this storage is both open and closed. And you can see that the system of being open, there's organization to it because there's rows of hooks. And there's a system underneath the bench where you could see that like each boy has his own little sort of cubby, where each of his shoes could kind of line up. But at least the shoes aren't in the pathway where you're coming in the door. There's like a place for everything, everything in its place. Yep, exactly. Yeah, and then she does have that moment where she has a furniture piece with two lamps on that she can just leave on. Again, this is the entry that they're gonna come in each night and be able to take off their outer layer and then just come on in and be at home. Yep. One thing I am gonna say on this one, cause she actually had another bench too that had no hooks above it, which is a furniture piece that's not shown here. That's really great. This one, if you only have room for a bench with hooks above it, be aware. If that's your only seating, people with the hooks will overhaul your seating and then you're gonna sit and you would be pushed forward by all the jackets and things behind you. So you do kind of have to understand your family, see what alternate places there are to sit so that that doesn't become like your only spot when it's a really rushed morning and you were running out the door and you're like, I can't even sit and put on my boots anymore because there's so much stuff behind me as you're designing your mudrooms, just to make sure that the hooks might take over that bench if that's your only spot. So, yep, I love this. And again, it has that same furniture rule where you have a piece that's a little bit more flexible to kind of move all with you throughout the years. So love that. As soon as I get home from work, I do this thing that I heard an expert say, you have to go in and you have to change your clothes so that it signals to your brain, I'm no longer working. I put my phone down, I charge it and I go in my closet and I slip on my brushed bamboo jogger set from Cozy Earth. Costume change. It is and it changes something in my brain. They're soft enough to sleep in, but they're put together enough that if I have to answer the door, I'm not gonna be embarrassed, but I'm like in actual pajamas, you know? Yeah. Anyway, they are so soft, they're made from viscose from bamboo. They have this tapered fit with a relaxed waistband and just enough structure to feel intentional. I'm a huge fan, I just got them in the charcoal. I can't wait to see those. Okay, I do a little thing where I don't necessarily have time to change my whole outfit, but boy, do I take off my heels or my boots or whatever I'm wearing. And the first thing I reach for is the Lake House clogs. I love these things because they're slip on, which is like an absolute must when you're running in and out of the house, grabbing boys, getting the mail. I can wear these anywhere. I can wear them around the house. It has a cushioned footbed, a soft interior, and again, they're easy to slip on, which is everything. I forget that I'm wearing them when I'm in the house, but when the doorbell rings, I can quickly go grab it or go to the grocery store. And I still always look put together and uncomfortable. I love the Lake House clog. I do too. I think they're really good looking and I think they look really cute under a pair of jeans. Nobody's gonna think that you're wearing a slipper out because it's a clog. Exactly, exactly. But they don't know that I'm actually wearing slippers because they feel so comfortable. Agreed. I feel like I need them in every color now that I have them. Me too. They're so good. Why Cozy Earth stands out to me is it's the details. The fit, the fabric, the way these pieces are made to last. This isn't fast fashion for the house. It's something you'll actually be reaching for years from now. This spring, give yourself the kind of comfort that lives with you all day, not just the moment you get home. Head to CozyEarth.com. Use our code, DEARALIS, for an exclusive 20% off. That's code DEARALIS for an exclusive 20% off. And if you get a post purchase survey, mention that you heard about Cozy Earth right here. Okay, this one is from our corner canyon. This is another one that we felt like space that we all have in our home. Yeah, everybody's got this moment or they at least have this amount of space in the back door for just a small little tiny run of lockers. And then you've got, she has a cabinetry here instead of furniture with a nice beautiful stone top. You still got that lamp by the back window so you can have that moment. And then she has cubbies where she could put car keys, sunglasses, all of that. She's also got storage underneath that little built-in chest, if you will. And so she can have envelopes, extra stamps, whatever she needs to be able to get out the door and stay organized. So I just felt like this was something we could relate to. The bench in this space right by that back door before she goes out to the garage. And then she's got her mirror above the bench so she can make sure she buttons her coat the right way. Yep, and it's the style point. This is like what makes it so her. It's so happy, an individual. And this is a moment to have a lot of fun. Like you saw the first Manchester mud hall, which was Magenta paint on the cabinetry. You can see here we've got a Magenta run of beautiful upholstery on this bench. And then the mirror brings some personality. So it doesn't have to be all utility. Like Corey was saying about not using the island that we can inject this sort of fashion points, personality points, because like we said, after all, this is your entry to the house. Okay, all right, now we're gonna go to our Odessa project. This is our desert Oaks. And what's really fun about this home is that it has Western soul to it. They wear boots and like we really were able to interview like what does that look like? She's like, well, I'll need a boot tray. Perfect, you have a boot tray. She's like, yep, and you have the things. And when you're wearing boots, it is they're hard to get off. If you don't have one of those things that you hook your boot in and you pull your leg out. She has those and they're darling. And we're able to like help source those. Anyway, so I'm just like, you can get really specific on how you dress and what your demographic is, paint the picture and teach people how to use this space when they come into your house, even in the back entry. So this was like a full hallway. This is their grip on the screen. We're looking at their floor plan. You come through their garage doors. There's this back stairwell, but then we just have these two lockers right here. And then it's kind of cavity here for our chest. So that becomes your surface with a light. You have your storage. And then we parked at the end of the hallway. We have a mirror with a little stool over here. So again, it's a little bit like more of a stretched out like mess hall, but it's so cute. And I just love the way it turned out. Here's the elevation of that one wall. Again, you have the vented cupboards. She wants to just have it be pretty. She's like, just make sure that there's holes to vent their shoes, but we're gonna do drawers. In this case for her kids, she just has like one perfect girl and one perfect boy. This back hall entry is so common of the older traditional homes where you have a back stairwell that takes you up. And most people wouldn't think to park a piece of furniture right there because you've got that sort of triangular shape of the stairs running up, but it really is so perfect. If you can see on your screen now, this is a sketch that Sue's did, a little study. So you've got the full height of the lockers and then next to it graduated down is this furniture piece that's a chest. And then you've got the lamp that you're gonna leave on all night. Those drawers are gonna be hard working, whatever mom needs. If it's driving gloves or stamps, postage, nothing when driving gloves. Also a category we all need to pull into our wardrobe. Driving gloves, cashmere scars, whatever it is that mom needs. But this is such a cute little vantage point to open up a door and see this. Again, most people wouldn't think to have their eye land on a little piece. They'd just let the stairs be there and nothing else. But also again, with that descent and that graduation, just even having that little garden stool, it has to be there. It does. So cute. Question on the, go so go to that next slide with the face elevation of the, if you weren't going to do drawers on the bottom there, would you still, and you were gonna do a cubby, would you still segment that in four or like do it one, maybe segment it in two or yeah, how would you do that? I'm like, you could segment in two. I think I like the divide. Keeping that. Yeah, I like those verticals. So I think I would pull that down again, very minimum, I would segment it. I think structurally you would have to have two sections, but I don't know, I love the four. I love the multiple. It kind of reads like a double armoire or something where he's gonna have one half and then daughter's gonna have the other. So I agree. I think the rhythm of four on the bottom feels really nice. Yeah, and there are family of four. Again, we have this bank and then we have one exactly the same on the opposite side. So I think we employed the other side to have a plug in for their Dyson and like some of their cleaning stuff that they need back there. So again, storage is whatever you need. Again, we're in West Texas, so there's a lot of sand. And if you have a stick vacuum, I would say make sure your electrician puts that outlet, you know, four feet up the wall. So, so you don't have to run the cable down. So yeah. I have a sketch of that somewhere. Yeah. We're drawing that. So here is again, we wallpapered it because we could and it was just the most darling, but this kind of shows you what that turned out. You guys, along with the boot tray and the cute little boot rack, whatever, she had grabbed this darling like run of hooks. That's also another thing too, even if you aren't building your home right now, there's things like this that you can put in your home to make it so charming and make it really utility and work for you. And so we hooked that little cowboy hat right there. This thing would be full, I swear at my house. I think the mud hall, a place for everything and everything in its place. Like even considering the dog leash, that could have its own hook. But if everything has a place, that's the goal of the mudroom is that you can go there and find it there every time. Cause the kids know that's where the dog leash goes. It's not that you're just gonna throw it in a random drawer or in a random locker that you create a full working system as beautifully as possible for this back hall. But everybody knows that the cowboy hats are gonna go on this rack, you know? So I'm sure everybody listening out there about your mud hall, you could probably get more hooks. You could probably go get a lamp, right? And do something charming that you can leave it on. You could probably add a mirror if you don't currently have one. There's so many things we could currently do to just up level what's there. I'm looking at this thinking, I could definitely use more hooks, you know? Even for the outgoing dry cleaning or incoming, you know? Otherwise it's just over my railing because there's not a place for it. I'm in the back of doors. You can do things. Like you can put darling mirrors on the back of doors or a hook or something. Give yourself some more help. So I love that. Here are a couple of videos that I just... There was such a charm. This was probably the last space that we kind of really installed in the house. We can see like the darling railing. There wasn't a lot of it, but we're like we should do something really fun. So we did this tulip railing, that beautiful chest. We found this rug that had these horses on it, which is so, so neat. The video shows that graduation of the garden stool. Endo go over there talking to the rug. This cabinet tray that just looks like bathwater. I don't think I would ever, ever tire of that color. I'll show you one more too. That shows you the mirror at the end of the hallway without there's this darling little orange bench. Oh, like a little ottoman. Yeah, it's so good. That concludes the three things that every mudroom needs, which is storage, seating and a surface. Not to mention a mirror, so you don't get your buttons wrong. Yeah, yeah. So good. Guys, I hope this helps. As you're planning your mudroom, looking to up level your mudroom, if you're going through a remodel or a new build, you can really consider the systems and get everything behind that closed storage or do half and half like we showed you. I think a lot of these are great examples of what's possible. I hope that helps. I wanted to quickly tell you guys, we have a fantastic program for you. If you are in the market for furniture, we have a free furniture design service called Home Furnishing Design. And they're designers on standby that know the entire Alice Lane Rolodex, all the vendors we use plus our own product. And they are on standby to help you with your space. They're going to get it in an AutoCAD. They're going to space planet all really beautifully, interview you about how you want to live, what your style is, get all of your images and they're going to create a beautiful space for you. And it's complimentary. So your entire budget can go towards furniture. So if you want to get started, you're going to go to our design services tab, right Corey? Yep. And then go down to Home Furnishing Design. And then another thing to add to that is we've been doing, we rolled out our like customization program. So we've been doing, we've been customizing rugs, whether that be size or color, even material, we've doing it with case goods and upholstery. So that's been something that has really just kind of been taking off. And it's been great. There's so many people's rooms that the average size rugs aren't going to work perfectly for. And you're like, gosh, a 10 by 14 isn't going to work because the 14's too long. We could make a 10 by 10 rug. And all of the Home Furnishing Designers know how to adjust these drawings, use Corey and his team to be able to have these things hand knotted for you. And we can even choose custom palm colors. You're like, I love that rug. I love the Sussex rug, but I wish it was green. We can do that. So the ability to customize anything and to design a full room would usually cost you a lot of money in design services. And we have this whole team that's just dedicated to helping you with furniture. So again, that's called Home Furnishing Design. Go to the tab, the Design Services tab, scroll down. Yep. So aliceleinhome.com, Design Services tab, and then the go to Home Furnishing Design, fill out that form. And one of our designers will get back to you in 24 hours. It's usually like within less than an hour. So you'll be able to get started right away. I can't wait for you guys. Yep. And then also follow us on Instagram. The store site is at Alice Lane Home. And the interiors is at Alice Lane Interiors. That'll just take you behind the scenes of like projects and product launches and more. And if you have any questions for us on Dear Alice, send those to Dear Alice at aliceleinhome.com. And we would love it if you left a five star review. We are trying to be the biggest podcast in the world. And that would help get the word out. See you next time. See you next time. Thanks for listening. If you like our show, please leave a five star rating. A great story like Monsters, Inc. stays with you forever. And Disney Plus is where you'll find your next great story. From the return of the award winning hit series, Rivals. Welcome to the naughtiest show on television. To the unmissable crime drama, High Potential. Gotta dead body, gotta go. A lifetime of great stories awaits. This spring on Disney Plus, 18 Plus, subscription required. T's and C's apply.