The poet, e.e. cummings wrote, “…when the world is mud-luscious” to describe how spring looks through the eyes of a child. Of course, as adults and especially as parents, we want mud, whether it’s luscious or not, to remain outside and not be tracked throughout our homes. Having a room dedicated to removing mud or cleaning oneself up before entering into the main part of the house is not a new phenomenon, even though the term might be. In bygone days, the back room or the porch of a farm or manor house served as a place to wash off the grime of the fields or the stables before changing clothes and going inside.
Today, many homes either have a mudroom, a mudroom that is part of another room like the laundry room or an entryway designed as a place to easily take off outer clothing and store them conveniently away. It acts essentially as a buffer from the dirt that can be tracked from the out-of-doors into our living spaces. And especially now that we’re heading into spring and spring-cleaning mode, a mudroom or a mudroom type entryway can come in handy.
Decide where your mudroom will be. If it is in its own room or by the back door, you can go more casual than if you are designing a mudroom that will be part of your front foyer.
Opt for easy-to-clean, waterproof flooring such as tile, vinyl, laminate or stone. If your mudroom is a part of another room that is carpeted, add a mat or mats made of seagrass, bamboo or material that can be easily machine-washed. This will protect your wall-to-wall carpeting and save you from having to spot clean the area all the time.
Because this will be a high-traffic area, choose paint or wallpaper that is low-maintenance. Many types of paint and wallpaper can be wiped clean with a damp cloth.
Particularly if your mudroom is by the front door, consider adding an accent chest or console table with concealed storage. It will also be a handy place to leave keys or messages.
A coat rack paired with a bench like the Linon Storage Bench Short Split Seat Storage creates the ideal place for family and guest alike to sit and take of shoes or boots and then hang up their coats.
If you have a closet in the room or in the entryway, make it part of your mudroom design by adding a shoe rack to one end. Plan on hanging just jackets directly above the shoe rack to maintain the functionality of your closet,
Increase the storage capacity of your mudroom by placing a row of hooks above the storage bench or on the opposite wall. The Prepac Sonoma Black Cubbie Shelf Wall Coat Rack for Entryway includes hooks and cubby storage, which is ideal for a mudroom.
Every now and then, my keen sense of good housekeeping would kick in: I would remove the boxes and loose pairs sitting on the floor of the cupboard to attack the dust bunnies that had been hiding in the corners and on the shoes themselves. There were a lot of shoe boxes, 15 to be exact, and about a dozen pairs of shoes without boxes. So it would take up a nice chunk of cleaning, and it started to annoy me. There had to be a better way to organize the shoes in my life. 
There were no dimensions listed on the label. I looked and looked again until I finally figured out that the width of the rack would the length of the shelves plus a little bit extra to accommodate the sides and the height would the same as standing the unit upright on the ground. But I still had no idea if it would actually fit in my closet. Upon further scrutiny of the shoe rack organizer, it became evident that there was no instruction sheet either. One glance at the price convinced me to take a chance. After all, even if it didn’t fit in the bedroom closet I had in mind, it would certainly easily go in the walk-in one in the hallway. 
