If you’ve got an older home – like I do – and wish you had space for a mudroom for household supplies, coats, hats, and boots – but know there’s NO WAY your hallway from the garage is going to work, you’re not alone!

For homes built more than 20 years ago, a mudroom off the garage simply wasn’t included in house plans at that time. And I know – for one – in my house – trying to add a mudroom off the garage (which IS THE family entrance…

If your home home feels disorganized, then If I’m a betting man –when you attempt to walk through your mudroom or into your laundry room, it’s a less than optimal ‘experience’ (and that may be an understatement)!

The kids and your ‘sloppier half’ are treating the mudroom as their ‘personal’ dumping zones.

And the laundry room – well, what can you say about this ‘less-than-wonderful’ place you have-to face waaaay more times a week than you…

You’re sleeping comfortably in the bedroom of your home. It’s calm in the middle of the night. Then, you hear a strange sound. It’s the sound of running water. Where’s it coming from? You search and search only to find…

Oh no!!!

The first floor of your beautiful New Albany home is a layer of water. Panic sets in. Where’s the water coming from? How can it be stopped…NOW! It’s the water purifier. Find the shut off valve – QUICK!

Disasters are…

You see the drool-worthy pictures of organized mudrooms on Pinterest and get a severe case of house envy. You think, “Is there any way my disaster of a mudroom could look like the neat organized images on Pinterest? Maybe if I get rid of my 2 kids and husband – hashab!” Whether you live in Columbus, Ohio, or Columbus Georgia, the problem with mudrooms is the same. This space is constantly used (and abused). Although your family is coming…

Does your mudroom resemble these statements?

• Book bags thrown anywhere and everywhere on the floor.
• Shoes discarded into haphazard piles as you come in from the garage. You're waiting for the next time you spill out a bag of groceries after tripping over this shoe graveyard.
• SO many coats draped over SO few hooks. How long will it take to find your favorite raincoat on a dreary Columbus day?
• Your son's dirty JV football uniform dropped in the…

I grew up when there was no such thing as a mudroom (and there wasn’t much need for one either).

As a kid I entered my small ranch home at the side door (which BTW had a built-in milk chute – if there is anyone else out there who remembers what one of those was for). I simply flung my coat over on the available hooks by the side of the door and that was that. I didn’t own a bookbag. I don’t even remember anyone having a bookbag back in…