Hello everybody. Welcome to Dear Alice. Today we are talking about the mudroom. Oh, man.

The hardest working girl in showbiz. She is tired. She is tired. She is rode hard and put away

wet man. She does the most work. Also, a point about the mud hall is it's your entry. It's how you

come home. If you have a garage, you park that

car in the garage, you come in that backdoor and you land yourself in what we call the mudroom.

And we're going to be talking about that space today because it is so hard working. We've done a lot of

these spaces and we want to give you all of our best tricks, tips, advice, learnings from clients. And we're going to show you a few install shots that we've done a lot of these spaces and we want to give you all of our best tricks, tips, advice, learnings from

clients. And we're going to show you a few install shots that we've done over the years to really

make the mudroom a beautiful way for you to come home because most people don't get to come in

their front door entry every night. Yep. And the common denominators, we're looking through all the

mudrooms. There are three things that every mudroom must have. We're going to take you through all those things and see how you can employ it. And I think this is regardless of size. Whether you're a small mudroom or a big mudroom, you need to figure out how we can get all three of these things happening for your life to go smoothly. Let's tell them what they are. Okay. You want to give it

away? Just tell them all three. Okay, fine. Storage. We all need storage. Okay. You need storage for

shoes. You need storage for backpacks. You need storage for, you know, the mail. Where are you

setting that down? You need to have places that have a home otherwise they just get thrown on the kitchen island

like at my house on the kitchen island and then nobody knows where that flyer went yeah or that bill

or the IRS notice whatever it is you need a mudroom i think my kitchen island is the mud hall in my

house how do i think about it i don't know why we put so much mail on the kitchen island, but there really is. Like you need spots for this. Otherwise, you're going to be staring at it on your hardest working other surface, which is the kitchen island. So let's get it all at the back door and not bring it any further into the rest of the house. No, and then I'm going to one up it because you need storage, but then you have to create a system. We're not going to get into that, but I have had clients where we have brought in organizers. They're like, so my kids, they bring all these things, and they still get a lot of papers. This one needs to go in this file because that has to be signed by this person. And anyway, there really has to be like an intake and an outtake, stuff that's coming in and stuff that you have to send the back out with. You know, if you have kids, and I just think in general, just all the things, they land at that back door. Yeah. You know, for you to take with you the next day. So you have to create a process in this mudroom. So you have to give yourself an opportunity to have that storage, to have that organization. So storage is the first one. The second one is seating. We need seating. Yeah. We need to place to sit down, take off our shoes at the end of the day, put on our shoes at the beginning of the day. Even just to say your backpack down on something to unzip it, to pack that lunch to, you know what I mean? You just need to be able to have a surface to put that on. Otherwise, mom is bending all the way over down to the floor or you're going to crouch, hidden tiger, crouching dragon, whatever that was called. You got to get in that stance and you got to try and figure down on your knees and your thighs are shaking and yeah, just have yourself something to put that back back down on. I know because when I designed my house, we built someday, I'm going to have one hell of a mud room. Because right now I am crouching tiger hidden dragon. Yes, you are. Trying to put shoes on. It's too much. It's too much. It's a full body workout. It's too much. Yeah. I always tell my kids, I can't help you if you're on the ground. you need to get a little higher for me. I'm going to make a plaque.

I'll be on the ground.

Get up. ground. You need to get a little higher for me. I'm going to make a plaque. I can't help you if you're on the

ground. Get up. So you need storage. The third thing is just, again, that's a surface. You have a

surface in your mudroom. You have this beautiful chest where you have a tray where you keep all your

sunnies. It's kind of like this last spot. And remind yourself of the pretty. Yeah. Obviously you have to have a mirror. Yes. Of something and usually that sits above that

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