In this 1950s ranch style home you walk in from the garage straight into the laundry room. Inside the laundry room is a walk in coat/storage closet. The owner before had used it as a pantry/coat closet. Besides being outdated, this closet had a few identity problems.
Problem #1: The space of the closet would make a great pantry except the kitchen is down the hall, through the living room, and on the complete other side of the house.
Problem #2: All the doors opened into each other. If the closet door was open you couldn’t open the door to the garage and vice versa. If you changed the door to open inward, you would have to walk inside and shut the door to access one side of the closet. The solution? Take the door off and make the closet into a mudroom.
Taking the door off made the space flow uninteruppted but it created the need for something functional and visually orgnanized. The mudroom with built-in lockers was the easiest solution.
This was what the closet looked like on the other side. There was another coat closet located at the front door so we didn’t lose coat storage. Since the laundry room was located off the garage it was the main entry for the homeowner. The transformation to a mudroom would give the new homeowner a place for her family to drop their things on the way inside.
This was a “use what you have” transformation. The original shelves on the left side were taken down and reused on both sides. By hanging the first two shelves close together it created a nook for shoes. The space under the first shelf was made for bins and baskets to store hats and scarves. The top shelf is a place where she can store her folded laundry just in case she doesn’t have time to put it away immediately.
This makeover was easy to do and inexpensive by reusing what the closet already had to offer. Bead board and trim pieces were added to the wall to give the look of a custom built-in locker system.
The hooks were added after the dry wall was patched and the wood got a fresh coat of white paint.
The shelves are even sturdy enough to sit on while you take off your shoes.
Often homes are built in a way that makde sense for one family but when the home changes hands it doesn’t translate to the new family’s needs. It is not crazy that your family uses the space much differently than the homeowner/renter before. If you have a space that seems “off”, re-work it a little to make it funtional. A great place to start are closets like the one above. They are a great place to add some usable square footage in many different ways.
