Tiny Space Mudroom | How to Design and Build

I’m a big believer in mudrooms. When I redid my entryway in my California condo, it completely changed how my home functioned.

Things were put away as I walked in the door, instead of scattered throughout my kitchen and living area. I was an organized human. I always knew where my keys were. Things were good.

So therefore, one of my primary goals after buying a new home was making a mudroom. Since I always entered at the back door, the mudroom was really more of a small mud-area (this is a terrible name; Lets go with “drop zone,”) off the kitchen. Regardless, I thought I could make it work.

There was a door to the basement across from the exterior wall. It needed space to fully open, so I only had about 10″ from the exterior wall to play with. This meant no benches or “lockers” or other bulky things. Knowing this, I started my plan.

I first listed out all the things I wanted to store in the space. The list below is specifically for the exterior wall; I had another list for the tool organizer.

I then thought about how it would be best to store these things. Coupons and receipts could go in a file organizer, while gloves and scarves would be better off in a box. Jackets, keys, and my purse could all go on hooks. I also wanted a shoe area to store my most used shoes.

I then drew out a design. I tried to draw it to scale (I’m kind of obsessed with graph paper spiral notebooks!), but ended up making minor changes to the positioning as I mounted things on the wall. I also erased things lots of times (you can see it in the picture below,) clearly I’m indecisive.

Once I had a decent draft, it was time to begin!

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Small Space Drop Zone

Materials

• Beadboard, cut to size
• Piece of trim, cut to size
• Construction Adhesive
• Piece of wood
• Hooks
• File Organizers – You can see the full tutorial here. On the third and fourth organizers, I used straight instead of angled sides. This resulted in the gloves/scarves box and the shoe box.
• Tool Organizer– Super proud of how this turned out. You can see the full tutorial here.
• Brad Nails
• Welcome Home Sign

Step 1: Attach the Beadboard

I had my beadboard cut to the size I wanted (36 3/4″ by 56″) at Home Depot, so it was super easy to just put some construction adhesive on the back and nail it to the wall.

As an exciting side note, I got this four pack of Titebond adhesive at Menards for 99 cents after rebate. I was super pumped about this, and have made a mental note that it sometimes goes on crazy sale. If you live by a Menards, take note!

I also added screws where I knew I would be putting trim, and made sure these screws hit the studs. I did this because I knew I’d be attaching things to the beadboard, and I wanted to make sure that the beadboard could bear the weight of the accessories.

Step 2: Attach the Trim

I cut my trim to the same length as the beadboard (36 3/4″) and attached it to the beadboard with construction adhesive and brad nails. 

Step 3: Caulk, Wood Fill, and Paint Beadboard

Caulk works miracles people. In my opinion, lack of caulk is the biggest indicator of a DIY project, so I made sure to fill in all my gaps (sides, bottom, and top) with caulk. Additionally, I wood filled all of the brad nail holes with wood filler so that they wouldn’t be seen. I then painted the beadboard.

After painting!

Step 4: Add Organizers

I went into detail on different ways to attach the organizers in the file organizer post, but in this situation I attached the small organizers with brad nails and construction adhesive, and the larger organizers with screws that I later disguised with paint.

I was able to get at least one screw for the shoe box and the wood hook piece into a stud, which was ideal since both of these boxes might hold heavier things at some point.

Final Thoughts

It’s amazing how much more organized a functional entryway makes me feel. I keep all my project receipts in folders in one of the file organizers, so that I’m ready to take back anything I don’t use. I’m so much less worried about losing them now; it’s crazy.

I love my new entryway! Have you ever done a project that makes you feel 100% more organized? Let me know about it in the comments!

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