Find Your Inspiration

It is Snow Day #89, I think. So I am doing what every responsible, excellent Mother would be doing - hiding in my study and quietly busying myself with unnecessary tasks while hoping that the kids don't find me. Hey, don't judge. At least I'm downstairs and not hiding in a closet like I was doing the other day:)

Today let's talk a little more about finding your inspiration. I've mentioned this idea in previous posts and want to reiterate it again. Although you may be anxious to get started with decorating a space, don't begin the project until you have found your inspiration. Once you find that inspiration, build around it.

When looking for a new house, one of my "must haves" was a mudroom. With four boys, this is an absolute necessity for my sanity. I wasn't sure what route I wanted to go with this mudroom. It felt very dark and cave-like, so originally I was thinking that I wanted to do something to brighten it up, but just couldn't come up with the right colors.

My mudroom inspiration:

One of the boys decided to decorate my wall. Notentirely sure he thought the idea completely through when he later tried to deny that it was his work;)

But, this did offer me the inspiration that I needed to begin the project. Although I had originally planned to brighten this space, a chalkboard wall just seemed to be what I was looking for. I've always wanted to put one in somewhere, but it didn't quite work in my other spaces. Because this area is essentially separate from the main living areas, I felt like I could treat it a bit differently and give it more of an individual personality. One of my big pet peeves with a chalkboard wall is the chalk dust collecting on the ground and baseboards. We tried to assist a bit with this issue by putting a small piece of trim along the bottom to catch the dust.

I'm kind of obsessed with organization and all things Pottery Barn, so I had to make my calendar a big part of this decor. It is strategically located as you exit the house so that my husband knows what we are up to that day since he never really pays attention when I tell him;)

I think one of the more important items to have in a mudroom is a table to place keys, mail and other items as you are walking in the door. I found a small table on Amazon for relatively inexpensive that works well because it is not very deep, therefore not getting in the way too much as you are walking in.

This space is quite narrow, so I wanted to add visual space to it by emphasizing the high ceilings. I purchased inexpensive wood frames from Michaels, painted them in a variety of colors, and hung them nice and high to draw the eyes upward.

In this mudroom we were lucky enough to have a little alcove already built into it. In the model home and many others, people have had Pottery Barn inspired built-in lockers created in this space. I love the look of these and they are absolutely gorgeous, but not quite in my price range right now. Instead I decided to re-use the cubbies that we had built years ago for use in our old garage because we didn't have a mudroom. My husband built these for me with my design created from the preschool cubbies at my children's school. They have turned out to be quite functional although as the kids get bigger, I'm finding that we are going to be running out of space in them pretty soon.

I couldn't handle the super boring, builder-grade white flushmount that came with the house, so a fun upgrade from Lowes was a necessity to complete the look.

 I stumbled across this large letter "L" at Michaels and decided that I just had to have it for the house. With a bright red for a pop of color, it worked perfectly in this space!

And there you have it - a completed mudroom! With the fun pops of color, the darkness of this room doesn't bother me too much. And it offers me a place to leave necessary messages for my more forgetful child as he is getting ready for school:)