Is your mudroom Pinterest-worthy or does it's name say it all?


simple, but beautiful color
via Pinterest, original source unknown

Suffice it to say I have mudroom envy. I have a fascination bordering on obsession with mudrooms and entryways. I'm not really sure why and I'm not really sure where this obsession originates from but it's there. In my adult life I've never had a particularly beautiful entryway or mudroom. Growing up in New York City I lived in an apartment on the 9th floor. My building was a beautiful pre-war building on 5th Avenue. I had to take the elevator up to my floor and I entered out onto a small private vestibule and then into a small foyer. Both were impeccable. The foyer had a dresser, a wicker sofa where I sat to put on boots or shoes and was all done in an elegant black and white wallpaper with a deep orange ceiling. The vestibule was also wallpapered, Elizabethan (or were they Victorian) characters dotted the landscape. It was simple and yet quite elegant and formal. I imagined these characters sitting in the opera or some grand, elegant theater and I was in the center on the stage. I would stand in the middle of the room and when no one was around, as I stood and waited for the elevator I would stand there and perform, belting out various Broadway tunes. I stopped as I heard the elevator approach.

My last home had a mudroom off of the garage and a laundry room off the mudroom. We had a very nondescript 2-story foyer with a table at the bottom of the stairs that greeted you as you entered that I tried to remember to fill with flowers or something festive if I remembered. We never entered through the foyer. Our mudroom was our point of entry. Muddy, sandy, dirty. Coats hung and fell from coat racks. Shoes and boots and sneakers and cleats were flung from little feet and landed across the room. Partially opened backpacks and soccer balls left behind occupied the floor and covered the slippery white tile that I loathed. There were boot trays for the shoes. There was a dresser for mittens, hats and scarves. Hooks for the coats. It should have been tidy and lovely. It wasn't. I had three kids under 12. Each one a whirling dervish. I picked up and tidied and zippered and hung. I vacuumed and mopped and I would have killed for a space that even remotely looked like something found on Pinterest or Houzz. But my messy kids would not make this possible even though, for the most part, the rest of the house remained nearly spotless.

I now have a coat rack in my kitchen. It hangs to the left of the door as we enter from the garage. I like the kids to take their shoes off in the garage but this doesn't always happen. The backpacks are now neatly lined up against the back door. It's an improvement but we're still no where near Pinterest-worthy. The front door, which we never use, opens onto our spacious living room. As you enter a narrow table filled with antique French decor magazines that featured my grandmother's home, a Ralph Lauren reading lamp (Home Goods score!) a large candle on a tortoise charger that was my grandmother's and an old horse shoe for good luck. Beneath the table 2 large wicker baskets sit filled with magazines. We're getting closer to Pinterest. We'll get there one day! Meantime I have lots to look at for inspiration!


Interior design by Jan Showers
via Jan Showers

dramatic entry
Stephen Gambrel

Janette Maclean Home // Design Mom
Jeannette Maclean Home

reclaimed wood mirror
design Emma Reddington, House and Home

entryway oversized mirror and parsons table
via Jillian Harris

wood entry doors, white plank walls
via Better Homes and Gardens

miles redd
Add caption

miles redd
Architectural Digest

love the green door and the brick floor~and the old dog too
via Inspiring Interiors

love the #wallpaper
Atlanta Homes Magazine

Darby Entryway Bench | Pottery Barn  with hooks mounted above
Pottery Barn

neat-o candle holders
Pawley's Island Posh

Entryway.
House and Home

towel bar, tall mirrors
ElleDecor

House Beautiful
House Beautiful

skirted console
V Interiors

For these and more inspiration please visit my Entryways and Mudrooms board on Pinterest!
But tell me, truthfully, how many of you really have Pinterest-worthy mudrooms and entryways?

XOXO

Jessica