DANIELLE AT HOME

Organization

Our Garage Mudroom Makeover

by Leave a Comment

Let me start this post off by saying I LOVE our house! My husband and I regularly look around and comment on how much we love our home and how lucky we feel to live here. But, I HATE the lack of storage in our entry way!!! When we bought out house I knew we would have to do something about storage for coats and shoes. Since we bought our house from studs I’m sure we could have had our builder put in a nice size coat closet. As overwhelmed first time home buyers we just didn’t think to ask for any changes (lesson learned). So here we are with a great house with ZERO storage in the entryway. Enter the need for a mudroom.

Planning

We decided to add a small mudroom area to our house but the question was where. Since we enter our house from the garage 95% of the time we decided to put the main mudroom in the garage.The next decision we had to make was what type of storage we should have. Benches, lockers, hall trees or wardrobes. We really went through it all. In the end we settled on a large enclosed storage unit. We came to this decision because we felt out coats would be more protected from the dirt and debris that inevitably ends up in a garage. Once we settled on closed storage we had to find custom plans or a pre-made option.

Garage Mudroom Planning

After much searching and measuring we decided to go with a customized Ikea Pax Wardrobe. We went with this option for the following reasons;

  1. It looked easy, I was tackling this project solo so it had to be simple!
  2. The wardrobes come in many different sizes including narrow widths. Since I park on this side of the garage we needed something narrow.
  3. The wardrobe has a sliding door option, this is great since again I park in our garage.
  4. Lots of different interior configurations and options.

I used the Pax Wardrobe planner to map out our needs, we went with two 75cm wide units in the tallest and narrowest size available. I added a pull out coat rack to each, shelves for shoes and another shelf for baskets. I highly recommend using the PAX planner it really made the process painless.

Assembly

Assembly of these units was actually really easy! I was thrilled because I was using these units in part as a trial run for our master closet. The actual boxes were very easy to assemble and place solo. Once I got them where I wanted them I used the anchoring system provided as well as some further reinforcement from my favourite drywall anchor system! We have used these all over our house and they have never failed me. I didn’t want to mess around finding studs to anchor into (I did hit two!) so these were perfect! Once the boxes were up it was time to hang the sliding doors and soft close system.

Building our Garage Mudroom

Pax Wardrobe Assembly

Mudroom Progress

Now this was the hardest part! Youtube saved me because the instructions for the sliding doors were pretty minimal. Once I got the sliding door system set up I enlisted my husbands help to hang the doors on the tracks. I tried alone but the units are just under 8 feet, so I just couldn’t do it solo.

Once the doors were on I configured our shelves and our coat rack. Once the Pax wardrobe was fully assembled I decided the unit needed handles. I knew adding them would mean the doors wouldn’t open to there full range but I felt having something to grab onto was more important. I ordered these great flush handles of amazon and they were exactly what I was looking for. Once they were installed it was time to fill up the unit with shoes, coats and lay out the new runner (this was a great find!).

Final Product

I’m so happy with how this turned out. The shelves hold the perfect amount of shoes since we only keep our everyday shoes down here. All of our coats fit very comfortably on the racks (I didn’t think they would). And our baskets leave lots of room to grow. I filled one of the baskets with cold weather accessories, and reserved one for storing our sandals in for the winter.

Pax Mudroom

Garage Mudroom

Garage Ikea Mudroom

What I love about this unit is that I can move things around very easily as our storage needs change. Like maybe after our first winter we realize we don’t use the baskets. We could remove them and move the self to create more room for shoes. I could even buy another set of shelves and move things around a bit more to create room for more shoes. It’s so great to be able to change things up in the future.

I’m so glad we tackled this problem area in our house and can’t wait to see how this works for us this fall and winter! Do you have a problem area in your house? How did you solve it?

Danielle xo

 

 

Pantry Organization: Practical over pretty

by Leave a Comment

Today I’m going to share how I took my pantry from disaster zone to functional. I’m sharing all of my favourite products, what I did wrong, what I did right and the changes I plan to make in the future.

When we were looking for our house we saw a lot of beautiful homes with great kitchens without pantries. You know those beautiful walk in pantries from Pinterest? Well pretty quickly I realized we would not have one of those. So when we looked at our house and realized we would have a small closet for a pantry I was trilled! Our old pantry was a deep pot drawer, so the upgrade was exciting.

Once we started using the pantry I realized it was a bit of an organizational disaster. The closet is pretty deep and our builder only put in three wire shelves. It really wasn’t functioning and was frustrating to go into. I knew I needed to figure out a solution.

Pantry Makeover: Before
Pantry Organization: Before

The Plan

This pantry needed to function, look clean and take minimal time and effort to complete. In a dream world I would rip out the wire shelving and build out custom shelves, but that was out of the scope. Here was the plan.

  • Relocate supplements, teas, coffee and small appliances
  • Decant regular pantry staple such as flours and rice into air tight containers (no BUGS!)
  • Corral small items and packages into baskets
  • Wire baskets for potatoes and other root vegetables
  • A storage solution for plastic bags

So once I figured out what types of products I needed I got onto my computer and ordered sooo much stuff!! My biggest piece of advice is to buy way more then you think you need and then return! This will save you so much time running back and forth from the store. I ordered everything online from Amazon or Bed Bath and Beyond.

Pantry Organization: My Favourite Products
wire baskets / plastic baskets / food containers / label maker / chalk pen / bag clips

The Process

The first thing I did is pull all of the food out of the pantry. I went through everything. I categorized the items as follows.

  • Toss (expired or stale food)
  • Donate (items that are still good, but we won’t eat)
  • Relocate (items that don’t belong in the pantry)
  • Keep (all the food that’s staying in the pantry)
Food Storage: Before
Favourite Storage Containers

Once I had categorized the food I gave the pantry a quick wipe down and vacuum. This is when the fun starts! I placed the empty containers and baskets in the pantry and mentally laid out what food would got where. I decided on the following zones.

  • Top Shelf: treats, snacks and back stock
  • Middle Shelf: canned/jarred items, seasonings/”meal items”, grains and pastas
  • Bottom Shelf: Breakfast/Baking items (nuts, dried fruit etc), flours, oats and sugar, small baking items (leavers, vanilla and cupcake liners)
  • Floor: Root vegetables and bag storage

It took a few tries and moving things around before I settled on this layout. I decanted my flours and grains and put everything in baskets! I was super happy with how much more functional and cleaner looking it is.

Pantry Organization: After

Tips

  • Keep a list of food you’re out of but normally need storage for when completing this. Then you won’t forget to Mae room or buy a container for it
  • Write dates or cook time on containers with a chalk pen. This is such a lifesaver when ditching the boxes or directions for food.
  • Label baskets and containers so that the rest of your family can find items and put things back in the right place. This helps tremendously to keep the pantry organized.

Results

Over all I’m very happy with how this worked out. I actually completed this project in October but wanted to wait until I lived with this system before sharing. I do have a few tips and regrets to share.

Let’s start with the good. I love these OXO Pop containers! They were not cheap, but I think they were worth it. Not only do they look great but they’re air tight and stack really nicely. This was great over the holidays when I had more food or unique items in the house because I could stack the bins to create extra space. I also love the baskets I chose. These were a good price and wipe up nicely. I also love that I have tall baskets to hide the mess or Costco sized snacks and low ones in my cooking section. The low ones are great for knowing exactly what I have when making dinner.

Pantry Makeover: After

The one thing I did wrong with this is picking containers that were too small. The containers I bought for pasta and brown sugar were way too small. Initially I thought they would work but once I bought full boxes and bags of food to restock I realized they couldn’t fit standard sized products. So I’ll be upgrading to larger bins as needed and repurposing the small ones for dried fruit and nuts.

Also I really didn’t need to two wire baskets for potatoes and onions, one totally suffices. I plan to repurpose the second basket elsewhere in our house and get another plastic basket for heavy back stock.

As our needs change over the years I foresee some modifications to this pantry set up. At some point we are going to need to change the shelving. I’d love to upgrade to solid wood or MDF shelves and add one or two more shelves. This would allow us to store more food. I see a need for extra room for cans, baskets and bigger bins of dry food. I would also like to relocate the plastic bag storage to else where in the house so that that bin can be filled with even more food!

I hope if your pantry is giving you trouble that my experience helped you and makes this project way less daunting! I’m so happy with the results!

Danielle xo