We don’t have a dedicated mudroom, and our garage door—our primary entrance—opens straight into the kitchen. During our big kitchen remodel we solved that by installing tall cabinet “lockers” next to the garage door. If you have a tight space but want mudroom-style storage, cabinets with doors are a great option: they hide clutter while keeping everything close to the door. After living with these mudroom lockers for more than two years, we made a few simple changes that dramatically improved their function.
(For anyone wondering, that’s Sherry’s shoes, jeans, fleece, and a similar purse shown here.)
Our Mudroom Cabinetry Set-Up
To orient you: the door to the garage is our main entry, and the two floor-to-ceiling cabinets beside it act as a compact mudroom. Each cabinet has two doors, so between the two cabinets our family of four effectively has a personal “locker.” These cabinets store shoes, jackets, backpacks, boots, purses, gloves, and hats—everything we need near the door without leaving it all exposed on the kitchen floor. Before this setup we had a dusty shoe basket and a distant coat closet, so installing cabinetry right by the entry made a huge difference in daily convenience and tidiness.
On the kids’ side we installed hooks for jackets and backpacks and a bin beneath for extra shoes. It gets messy occasionally, but overall it’s been highly functional. We also keep a basket of socks with their shoes so they don’t have to run upstairs in the mornings—a small habit that saves time and headaches.
Above the lockers we use the overhead cabinets to store seasonal winter accessories—scarves, hats, gloves—in labeled bins. They stay up top until needed, which keeps the lower lockers uncluttered during most of the year.
Identifying Our Organization Issue
Our adult side originally had hooks, a shelf, and shoe baskets, but over time we noticed two problems: coats were longer and would bunch up and wrinkle at the bottom, and the shoe bins were inefficient. The bins could only hold a few pairs and were awkward to access—smaller shoes would even slide out if the bin tipped. What worked for the kids didn’t meet our needs.
You might think the solution was simply to move the shelves, and you’d be right. The shelves were placed at the highest and lowest pre-drilled positions during the remodel, so we hadn’t bothered to re-drill holes back then. After living with the setup for a while, we finally felt ready to tackle the adjustment as an easy weekend project.
Adding More Shelving Storage
We marked the new shelf location with tape to protect the cabinet finish and to keep the layout level and aligned with the existing holes. There are commercial shelf pin templates and jigs you can buy, but we used a simple ruler-and-tape method to measure and transfer the spacing. To match hole size and depth, we tested drill bits in an existing hole, then marked the correct depth on the bit with tape so we wouldn’t drill through the cabinet side. That created holes that matched the factory ones perfectly.
We bought replacement shelf pegs from the home center; you can use click-lock pegs or the small plastic shelf supports—anything sturdy enough to hold your shelf. After drilling a couple new holes on each side and raising the top shelf and hooks, our coats hung freely without touching the shelf below, and we created space for two rows of shoes on the bottom.
We repurposed an extra shelf we had in the attic—plywood would also work if you need to make one—slid it into place, and the difference was immediate:
Tip: we use small charcoal odor-absorbing bags in the cabinets to keep shoes and gear smelling fresh—just air them in the sun periodically.
Maximizing Mudroom Function
By adding an extra shelf at the bottom and raising the top shelf and hooks, we eliminated the shoe bins and gained much more usable storage. Sherry now stores most of her everyday footwear in the mudroom—about seven pairs—so she doesn’t need to run to the bedroom closet. I can fit my typical three pairs as well, even though they’re bulkier. The rearrangement converted previously wasted vertical space into practical storage.
The newly freed space on the top shelf is perfect for everyday essentials: a bowl for keys and wallet, a mail or gift card holder, the alarm keypad, the dog leash, and a cedar panel to keep the cubbies smelling fresh. We also placed the same cedar panel on the kids’ side.
This small update reinforced a useful lesson: live with a solution for a bit to learn how it actually performs, then make targeted tweaks. After a big project you might be tired and call it “good enough”—that’s fine—but revisiting small improvements later can be very satisfying.
Case in point—Burger looks very pleased with our updated mudroom. He tends to hang close by when we’re packing up or taking photos, and this time he was extra attentive because he thought we were actually leaving.
We also like using a custom page-a-day family photo calendar on the inside of the doors. Taping favorite photos inside the lockers keeps memories visible all year—when the new calendar arrives in January we replace and archive the previous year’s picks in a memory box.
If you’re tackling a kitchen remodel or planning compact entryway storage, consider tall cabinets with adjustable shelving, added hooks, and a mix of open and closed storage to keep daily gear accessible but out of sight. Small, inexpensive adjustments—like drilling a few new shelf pin holes—can turn a good solution into an excellent one.
Also—how has it already been more than two years since that remodel?
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- Kitchen Remodel Chapter 1: Floor Planning
- Kitchen Remodel Chapter 2: Demo & Rebuilding
- Kitchen Remodel Chapter 3: The Big Reveal