thankful thursday :: my "mudroom"

We enter our house through the side door -- which leads directly into the kitchen. No closet. No mudroom. No nothin'. It didn't bug me too much when we first moved in. It was just the two of us then. Now that there's 8 of us . . . and long before we were that many, even . . . it started driving me mad! Shoes, backpacks, coats, boots, snow pants. They took over the entire kitchen. It made me crazy!

I didn't take good before pictures, but here are some pictures from about a year ago {not staged, mind you} of the area I'm talking about ::


And here's that same space now ::
It had bugged me for so long, but I had no idea how to remedy it. We tried a couple little changes without much positive impact, so I kind of gave up. Fast forward to about a month ago. Enter my friend, Nicole :: a organizing guru with her iPad and a latte for me in hand {bless her heart!}. She had spent the night before looking up and organizing ideas for me online and came armed and ready to go. We looked at the nasty space {or lack thereof}. Measured. Brainstormed. Studied the space a little more. Sipped our coffee -- I even spilled a bit of hers, klutz that I am. Looked at pretty online pictures {that I'm confident WERE all staged} and made some plans.

I then did a bit of online shopping {directly from Nicole's links!} and got to work. It's so very fabulous now, and so far {about a week in} is working out great for our family. I'm so thankful to have the space be better used and so, so much cuter too!

My parents came over for an entire day last week and helped me put on the finishing touches. I am so grateful!

Here's the whole photographic tour of our entryway {also all unstaged -- this is how it looks most of the time now! Praise God! Well, except for the fact that 5 of the people who live here weren't home when I took the pictures, so there were coats and backpacks and some shoes missing that are also in this area when everyone is home -- but the coats and backpacks all have hooks to go on and the footware that was upon those -- possibly stinky -- feet when these pictures were taken fit right into those empty cubes you see there. Prett great, huh?}::


Inside of the door leading to the basement :: shoe organizer that holds winter gear {hats, mittens, scarves, etc.}. When winter is over -- not that it's even really been winter this year -- we'll rotate that stuff out and it can hold summer stuff {sunscreen, goggles, flip flops, hats}::

View from just inside the back door looking toward the dining room::
Our new recycling bin {IKEA has the best stuff!}::
Looking from the dining room toward the back door::
A wider-angle look from the dining room::
Boots and a bucket for music stands and the patrol flag {which isn't in there in the picture because the kids were at school} and umbrellas when that season is upon us::

So, what do you think? Isn't it great? Do you love it as much as I do?