Since Seattle remains wet and soggy, this expert Seattle interior designer is sharing an earlier post.  It is very popular.  Hooray for well designed mudrooms!

The majority of homes today have a transition area from the outdoors.  Some are large and some are not.  But the mudroom of today is much more than its predecessor. It  now functions as the organizational center for busy households.  It can also serve as the laundry room, pet center and craft area.  The mudroom is a full-featured permanent part of new home construction and remodeling.  It is estimated that 3% of the home floor space dedicates its use to the mudroom.

 A full room, while nice, isn’t essential to making it work for you.  What is essential is a design to store stuff like:

• Backpacks and briefcases
• Hats and gloves
• Sports equipment and small toys
• Dog leashes and towels for cleaning dirty feet
• Messages, sport or lesson schedules

How to design for so many functions? Regardless of the size or style of the mudroom, innovation and practicality are indispensable.  Here are a few basic steps to get going.

1. What is absolutely essential? Who uses the area? What do they bring in and need on a daily basis? How does the space relate to other needs, i.e. laundry? Do you need a half-bath adjacent to the mudroom?
2. Assess the existing space.  De-clutter and determine available space. Add seating to remove dirty shoes, a storage bench, a small chest of drawers or a desk. Use shelves or hooks with cubbies for storage.  Mirrors are great for last minute touch ups plus add dimension to the space.
3. Measure and plan. How does it all fit in? Draw the room to scale as it gives perspective.
4. Take action.  Will you do the work yourself or hire a designer? A fresh approach provides new ideas.

 Final Thoughts

If the mudroom is a multipurpose room, consider these options:

• With laundry in the space add a cabinet with counter surfaces and upper cabinets for storage of cleaning products or general household items.
• A designated storage center is great for things like pet food, potting soils, small outdoor toys as well as cans, bottles and papers for recycling.
• A pantry cabinet can provide overflow storage for kitchen dry goods or easy snack access for children. Utilize labeled bins inside cabinets to keep it neat.
• Vary the height of hooks to allow for personalized space and easy accessibility. Small children can’t reach high shelves but will use baskets or shelves.
• Locate the dogs leash and towel close to the door.
• For adults, keys and phones should have their designated area eliminating a search when ready to leave. Locate a message center for easy viewing for all the family.
• For flooring, consider textured ceramic or porcelain stone tiles.  Vinyl can be slick; wood and laminate perform poorly in wet situation.

Wishing you had a friend in the design business right now? We’re here to help.  Ask Faith First or call us 206.437.8000.

Organizational Center for Busy Households

 The majority of homes today have a transition area from the outdoors.  Some are large and some are not.  But the mudroom of today is much more than its predecessor. It  now functions as the organizational center for busy households.  It can also serve as the laundry room, pet center and craft area.  The mudroom is a full-featured permanent part of new home construction and remodeling.  It is estimated that 3% of the home floor space dedicates its use to the mudroom.

A full room, while nice, isn’t essential to making it work for you.  What is essential is a design to store stuff like:

• Backpacks and briefcases
• Hats and gloves
• Sports equipment and small toys
• Dog leashes and towels for cleaning dirty feet
• Messages, sport or lesson schedules

How to design for so many functions? Regardless of the size or style of the mudroom, innovation and practicality are indispensable.  Here are a few basic steps to get going.

1. What is absolutely essential? Who uses the area? What do they bring in and need on a daily basis? How does the space relate to other needs, i.e. laundry? Do you need a half-bath adjacent to the mudroom?
2. Assess the existing space.  De-clutter and determine available space. Add seating to remove dirty shoes, a storage bench, a small chest of drawers or a desk. Use shelves or hooks with cubbies for storage.  Mirrors are great for last minute touch ups plus add dimension to the space.
3. Measure and plan. How does it all fit in? Draw the room to scale as it gives perspective.
4. Take action.  Will you do the work yourself or hire a designer? A fresh approach provides new ideas.

 Final Thoughts

If the mudroom is a multipurpose room, consider these options:

• With laundry in the space add a cabinet with counter surfaces and upper cabinets for storage of cleaning products or general household items.
• A designated storage center is great for things like pet food, potting soils, small outdoor toys as well as cans, bottles and papers for recycling.
• A pantry cabinet can provide overflow storage for kitchen dry goods or easy snack access for children. Utilize labeled bins inside cabinets to keep it neat.
• Vary the height of hooks to allow for personalized space and easy accessibility. Small children can’t reach high shelves but will use baskets or shelves.
• Locate the dogs leash and towel close to the door.
• For adults, keys and phones should have their designated area eliminating a search when ready to leave. Locate a message center for easy viewing for all the family.
• For flooring, consider textured ceramic or porcelain stone tiles.  Vinyl can be slick; wood and laminate perform poorly in wet situation

Need a Fast Solution to a dilemma?

More about Faith Sheridan..

Some of the most read posts from this blog are about design with children and makeovers ideas for their rooms. You know that a fresh coat of paint is always a fast  makeover especially if you let your children in on the selection process.  But always test the color (purchase a test kit or quart) and paint a sample one  foot square in several places in the room. These days there a fewer splurges on furnishings and furniture so I offer some options that are affordable to change a bedroom for a child.

Once you select a color the fun begins.. and I want to share a special and unique source. The company is Wonderful Graffiti and I have known about them for many years.  Mary McPhail is the co-founder and creative director of the company. The company is best known for  Wonderful Graffiti™ transfers.  The opportunities are abundant to impart your creative bent with the huge selection on the site. 

Considering children’s rooms, I saw a few that would be a great starting point to a unique room for your child. If you ever wanted to use words as decoration, here’s your chance.

From Wonderful Graffiti

Another Wonderful Graffiti

Create your own canvas

Use a graphic with a child's name

Have fun and exercise your imagination without breaking your budget.  Your child will love it and so will you.

Always eager to hear from you so send your comments or questions.

Still got the Wabi-Sabi bug… so I want to talk about using Wabi-Sabi  and in our high tech kitchens. How can we take the edge off the stainless steel and polished stone counters?  In Seattle using reclaimed wood is very popular.  Adding a table with reclaimed wood is a wonderful way to add something tactile and with history to your kitchen.  At my firm, Faith Sheridan Interior Design, I believe it’s a wabi-sabi, recycled material solution that sets a design apart.  Or you could shop antique stores for a harvest table such as the one shown in the photo.  I enjoy the transition of the kitchen with the simple addition of something old or vintage.  It remains clean and uncluttered. While visiting those flea markets or antique shops, look for vintage baskets.  Not only are they practical, but they also bring some ‘patina’ to your home.

Courtesy of Christian Sarramon

As regular readers know, I enjoy mixing different sorts of pieces, as long as they’re good looking and scaled appropriately to the setting.  A collected look adds and enhances a design.  According to Rita St. Clair, “The challenge professional designers face is to make a space look attractive and function well, regardless of whether we share a client’s aesthetics or lifestyle.”

Lately my interior design inspirations seek some Wabi Sabi.  And what’s Wabi Sabi exactly?  I like Architect Tadao Ando’s definition, “Pared down to its barest essence, wabi-sabi is the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature, of accepting the natural cycle of growth, decay, and death. It celebrates cracks and crevices and all the other marks that time, weather, and loving use leave behind. Through wabi-sabi, we learn to embrace liver spots, rust, and frayed edges, and the march of time they represent.  It reminds me of this rustic cabin I designed which honored the old.

Wabi-Sabi barbeque

Wabi-sabi is underplayed and modest, the kind of quiet, undeclared beauty that waits patiently to be discovered. It’s a fragmentary glimpse: the branch representing the entire tree, shoji screens filtering the sun, the moon 90 percent obscured behind a ribbon of cloud. It’s a richly mellow beauty that’s striking but not obvious, that you can imagine having around you for a long, long time-Katherine Hepburn versus Marilyn Monroe.

Image courtesy of “The Wabi-Sabi House”/Joe Coca

It’s the peace found in a moss garden, the musty smell of geraniums, the astringent taste of powdered green tea. My favorite Japanese phrase for describing wabi-sabi is “natsukashii furusato,” or an old memory of my hometown. (This is a prevalent mind-set in Japan these days, as people born in major urban areas such as Tokyo and Osaka wax nostalgic over grandparents’ country houses that perhaps never were. They can even “rent” grandparents who live in prototypical country houses and spend the weekend there.)”

Thanks to Tadao Ando for sharing this description.  Would like to live with Wabi-Sabi?