Week Four | May 27 | Pivot!
For the Spring 2021 One Room Challenge I am taking on our Mudroom. This is the workhorse of the house. It has to be filled with functional storage for all seasons, and ours is an unusual, dark room which needs more light, too. I’ll let you in on the inspiration board as well as plans for this welcoming room where organization and storage are critical — all infused with some Mid Modern style. Be sure to check in on all of the other ORC projects on the ORC blog here.
Every day I think: “Why didn’t I just make our garden the One Room Challenge room this time?” Certainly there is more visible progress outside right now, but this has been a week of work inside as well. It’s also the last week of school, so there has been just a little bit going on at our house! Yowza!
And I’m just going to pause here to say… if you are a teacher who has been teaching online this year: Bravo! If you have been in the classroom or in a hybrid model: Bravo! You all deserve medals and a big raise! And thank you!
Ok. Here’s a peek into our garden projects this week before I get to the Mudroom… we have been building raised flower beds in the Potting Garden and planting in the Kitchen Garden.
I also cleaned out the Stock Tank Pool and filled it this week, but the water is still too chilly for swimming. It is warming slowly, though. Thinking about installing a Stock Tank Pool this summer? I have a whole guide for how to do it. We love ours!
Ok. Back to the One Room Challenge… and before we go on, I’m going to tell you something that’s really important to me. Unlike a lot of ORC participants, I don’t save it all for the big reveal. Some people want to keep their readers guessing, and that’s a choice. I actually hate that approach, though. I feel like it gives people unrealistic expectations for home renovations.
I also am not going to stage this room for the big reveal. Part of this project is a storage room. We don’t have a garage, attic, basement — this is it. And it would be disingenuous to only put the pretty stuff in, dress a few shelves with plants, and tell you it was done. That’s not real. I will make this room as beautiful as it can be, but you’ll also see a lot of toilet paper, mis-matched plastic bins, and the real stuff it takes to run a house because that’s what will always be in this room.
And now for an update on the progress…
Part One: The Storage Room
For those of you who are new: the Mudroom is an L-shaped space with two functions: the entryway and the storage room.
A quick sketch — not to scale - - of the plans for the Mid Century Mudroom.
The shelves are loaded and in place at last.
I am still fine-tuning the shelves in the Storage Room — or as we call it — The Room of Requirement. Open shelves like these create some challenges: everything gets dusty over time, and it all needs to be neat and tidy or it looks terrible. But clear plastic bins are a great solution, and the items that aren’t used regularly are all stored away in bins. They don’t all match, but once I get them labeled that won’t matter. Decorations are sorted by holiday and will be labeled appropriately.
I’ve organized the room into zones — grouping like items together and placing the things we use most often at the front and middle of the room.
The Cleaning Zone is right at the entrance so cleaning products are easy to grab.
Cleaning tools hang just to the right of the small refrigerator. I love the Elfa tools hanger from their garage collection.
Drawers hold like items that are too small or fragile for bins.
We have adapted the Elfa system to our needs, too. A good hint: you can cut the Elfa shelves and other components with a Sawzall or hack saw. I ordered more pieces than I needed for this project so that I would have flexibility, and there have been several times when I have taken a whole section apart and reconfigured it. I think I am done configuring things now, and the leftover pieces will be returned. Overall, I am very happy with the layout!
Shelves placed close together hold platters and trays. Holiday dishes are in dish packs to stay clean.
I set a few rules for myself when organizing everything:
Use the zones. Kitchen items are together in one area, for example.
Group like items. All of the candles, for example, are together into a drawer.
No stacking. With the exception of a few small bins, nothing is stacked. Every item has its own space.
These rules were helpful in organizing items, but they also will help to keep things tidy as time goes on, our needs change, and the room changes, too.
We need to do some cord management, but the treadmill fits perfectly.
It’s a really small room, but we did squeeze a treadmill in at the back with a small TV, too. The treadmill folds up when not in use, so we can access the shelves at the end of the room. And I’m thankful we didn’t have to put it in the living room! I will tell you, though, putting it together and getting it into the room… it was more than a bit like that scene from Friends where Ross and Rachel and Chandler attempt to take a couch up a stair well… Pivot!
Part Two: The Mudroom
I spent time this week tidying the Mudroom portion of this project as well. It’s time to make some big and small changes in this room, and I’m excited to get going!
A few years ago, we created a storage solution for coats, hats, mittens, etc. But we never finished it! So, project one is to finish the mudroom built-ins. And I will have a tutorial for creating this storage solution — it is an IKEA hack made from counter top and Billy bookcases. It shouldn’t take long to finish, but it must be done! I have never been crazy about the bins I ended up using here, either. They are too farmhouse for our home, but they work really well. So I will be giving them a bit of a makeover, too.
We have lived with this for about two years, and we have reconfigured it. Now we will finally finish it!
A good fit, but too farmhouse for me!
This corner needs a plant, but it’s so dark in this room, nothing will live — for now!
This dresser is a MCM vintage piece which I found on the Facebook Marketplace. It is so functional here! I reorganized the drawers so that the top drawer now holds all of the necessities for getting out of the house: sunscreen, hand sanitizer, wipes, bug spray, poop bags. Everything has a place and should be easy to find.
The rug is now listed to sell. It is a great wool rug that we bought years ago at Crate & Barrel, and it is the right size for the room. However, since this is the place for muddy shoes, snow gear, and wet paws, I need a rug that can go into the washing machine. So that’s on order.
I have to open the doors to take photos in this room — that’s how dark it is! But that ugly metal door is on its way out!
And after months of fruitlessly searching for the right secondhand light fixtures, I have given up and ordered new lighting for this room, too. I am so committed to buying secondhand when I can that it is a little painful to buy new, but I just couldn’t find anything that was quite right. And I’m excited about what is coming!
The Design Priorities
So where are we on the project plan? Well, I’ve distilled this project down to three big design priorities:
Function and Storage: there’s a lot to fit into this strange little room without allowing it to look crammed. We’ll see if I can accomplish that!
Light and Lighting: this room has no windows, so we will be replacing the exterior door with something that will let in some natural light. We will also replace all of the light fixtures in the space, too.
Mid Century Style: it all has to work together, and the room needs some style, too. I’ll be using a combination of new and vintage items to give it a Mid Century vibe — I’m thinking Mid Modern Milan, personally.
This week was largely about function and storage — fine-tuning the Storage Room, tidying the Mudroom, and repurposing some storage. But I also ordered new lighting which is bringing some MCM style with it. And this weekend I’ll start stripping and restoring that beautiful door! So I’m on track, but we are at the halfway point. Eek!
The design boar for the Mid Modern Mudroom — ideas and aspirations for this critical room in our home!
Clean and crisp. White and wood. The Mid-Modern Mudroom Makeover will bring functional design and organization into one of the hardest-working rooms of our home. With a combination of vintage pieces, easy-to-clean fabrics, and storage solutions for every season, the result will be a mudroom that nods to our home’s Atomic Ranch roots while making space for our 21st century family.
To Linda Weinstein, the creator of the One Room Challenge, I offer my most sincere thanks. Thank you for offering this kind of opportunity and for opening it up to anyone. And to Better Homes and Gardens, the ORC media sponsor: thank you for making this possible! And to all of the other ORC participants: I’ll be sure to stop by to admire your work! It is always fun to do this together!
Thanks for following along! I’m so excited for the next phase!
Cheers!
Angela
Thanks to my sponsors for this project! Interested in being a sponsor? Let me know!
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