Ok, who’s
ready to get cleaning? AAAAhhhhh! Spring is here, finally…I think. Well,
the calendar claims a week now, so let’s get busy!
My project
this week was the mudroom. Eeww, the mudroom! It was the dirtiest, so I wanted
to start there first so that I felt like I accomplished something.
Here’s the
deal with the mudroom: It is the first place we step when we walk in from our
garage. It is the land of muddy boots, snowy mittens, book bags, hats, coats,
umbrellas, shoes that fit, shoes that don’t fit, snow pants, sandals, beach
hats…well, you get the picture. Maybe yours is similar. We also tend to throw anything that we carry
in onto the floor when we walk in or onto the table that sits there - things
like mail, paperwork, bags from the store. Ugh, just everything. I had to get
it in order.
So, of course, I thought I would share with you as well! Maybe, give you a bit of motivation? :) I am waving my pom-poms and doing cartwheels just for you! LOL! (Oh, gosh, that would be a sight!)
Here are the steps I
found to be most useful when cleaning out a mudroom:
1. WHAT
DO YOU HAVE? First, I had to empty
everything out to see what I had. I was a bit scared. But, I was still home
recovering from surgery, so I had a day to do it in between feeding kids, naps,
laundry, dishes…well, life!
So, I pulled
everything out of the closets and off the walls, emptied the bins and laid it
all out on the floor. I can say that a bit of panic and anxiety may set in when you try this at home. I
had all SORTS of junk hiding in there! Just take a few breaths and chant “I can do
this” over and over again! J Here’s a photo of mine just to make
you feel better!
2. THE
WALLS – Oh goodness, the walls! If you have a family like mine, the walls
are used to balance yourself when putting on your shoes, they are used as a
jungle gym for your 3-year-old and they are used to bounce hockey pucks off
when your kids are playing hockey IN the house! Our mudroom walls USED to be
yellow. They were now a lovely shade of “bumble bee”! Black streaks
everywhere!
I honestly
have used soap and water to clean walls, but this time I was reaching for my
magic eraser. I wasn’t fooling around! I knew it would work well and remove most
of the stains. If only it could fill in the holes in the drywall from smashing
the door against the wall when we first were moving in...beggars can't be choosers...
Here is the "after" photo of what the magic eraser did for me!
You can get
a bunch of them sent to you through Amazon or Walmart pretty cheap and they are
worth it!
3. THE FLOORS – After you do the walls,
you are definitely going to want to do the floors! All of the dust flying
around from the walls lands here. And, you want to get rid of it before you
move everything back in. Make sure you vacuum and mop…don’t forget the base
boards!
4. WHAT’S THE POINT? So, once the mudroom is ready to be filled
again, you need to figure out what it’s true purpose is. What do you want to go
back in there? Is it used for anything other than storing your outdoor clothing
and shoes? Do you have adequate space for everything you want to put back in?
Here is what I decided for ours:
a. It had to house our outdoor clothing as well
as our shoes for both seasons. I decided
that it would hold all of my stuff as well as my 3 kids’. My husband has his
own hall closet that has his hunting/fishing/manly gear, so he could keep most
of his stuff there. Still, 4 of us had
to share this closet.
b. It had to hold the every-day essentials as
far as grab-and-go items, mainly bags. My daughter’s book bag for school had to
go somewhere as well as my son’s bag for his preschool and my baby’s diaper
bag. These needed to be handy and had to go here.
c. The last thing I needed was a place to put
incoming/outgoing mail and papers as well as the notes for school that had to
be filled out for days my daughter had appointments or became a “walker” at
school. I also wanted to keep a place there for the “Box Tops for Education” we
save for her school. Everything else
had to go!
5. STORAGE – Now that you know what you
want to put into the mudroom, do you have adequate storage and a place for
everything? I knew I needed a place for the mail that I mentioned before. I
also didn’t have a place for the book bags other than hanging them on a
coatrack. The other issue I had was the hassle of getting out and putting away
mittens easily for the kiddos. My fix:
a. I bought a clear, plastic mail
organizer to hang on the wall in the mudroom.
b. I bought 2 unfinished wooden crates
from Joann.com to hang on the wall to help out with storage for the bags…I just knew that we’d be crawling over them on
the floor forever if I didn’t!
c. I scrounged around for something to
keep our mittens and hats in that the kids could easily access. I was done
having them throw their things on the floor because they were too busy to open
the closet door and put them away! I
found a few matching baskets that would work perfectly!
6. KEEP, DONATE OR TRASH? Now that you know what you want to put into
the mudroom, you have to make sure you actually NEED what you are putting back
in. The task now is to sort through all of the “stuff” and really ask yourself
if it is worth keeping. I think the
easiest way to tackle this is to start with one item, let’s say “shoes” since
there were so many! I looked at EACH
pair and gave myself 5 seconds to decide whether to keep, donate or trash them.
I have to say that there were SEVERAL pairs I trashed. I was slightly surprised
that I had held onto them this long!
The other
thing that will be helpful is when you are deciding to “keep” something, make
sure it is clean. If you need to wipe it down or throw it in the laundry, do
that right then so that you aren’t bringing dirty items back into the mudroom.
7. LOAD ‘ER UP! Once you have sorted
through all of your items, it is time to start bringing them back in and
organizing them. Aaahhhh. Make sure you find a system that works for you. Make
kids’ item “easy-access” and at their eye-level so that they will be more
inclined to pick up after themselves when they enter or need something.
Reload
section by section. Start with shoes,
then maybe hats and mittens, etc. Make
sure you have all of the like-items done before moving onto the next. In no
time, it will be finished!
8. REMAINING ITEMS that didn’t make the
final cut for the mudroom need to be put into a new place. Chances are, they
already have a place and they were just shoved there for lack of time or energy
to put them away. Well, at least I hope that is the reason because that was
mine! LOL! J
I found myself putting away shoes that my son hasn’t worn in over a year – they
went into the “baby” bins down in the basement for the next boy of the
family! I also found a kite, a yo-yo, a
hockey puck (surprise!) and a bunch of coins! OK, I found a bunch more things,
but I can’t let you know how really messy it was! But if I can do it in a day,
you can, too! I did it in about half-hour increments and just decided to live
with the mess all day until it was done.
Here’s
the final outcome:
Each of us
had a pair of shoes out (right now it’s boots). The shoes dry on the mat and
then if we don’t wear them the next day, they go back in the closet. We also have a place for each child’s bag and
a basket for their mittens and hats that they can easily access. The two oldest
have eye-level coat hangers and there are 4 other ones for the rest of us and
our guests. (Each one holds 2 or 3 coats)
In our
hanging file, there is a slot for incoming mail that we can just dump it in
when we walk in the door instead of throwing on the table or the kitchen
counter. We also have the outbound mail to go into the mailbox, and a slot for
school notes and boxtops.
I whittled
down our coat collection by about 1/3 (CRAZY!) and hung them up nicely. I also
organized all of our shoes and folded the snow suits and placed them overhead
in the closet. Wow.
I also had
made this crazy key holder out of a canvas from Joann.com and some paint and
mug hooks from Walmart. This was really fun and it is personalized to our
family. I LOVE having the keys all in one place!
I hated
every minute of cleaning, but it was so worth it! Give it a try, just hang in
there!
Check out my other Spring Cleaning posts!
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