Some people dream of being rich or famous. Not me. I dream of being organized.
When you have four kids, organization is hard. Especially on school days. Something is always getting lost or left behind. A “launching” area is essential to getting them out the door anywhere close to on-time.
When we were looking for a new house last summer, two things were on our “the house must have” list: a three car garage (Chris) and a mudroom (me).
The house we bought had neither.
What I do have is a typical, traditional foyer with a closet, but I quickly realized that was not going to work for getting kids ready in the morning. Since the foyer is at the front of the house and out of sightline from the kitchen, the kids were left to manage themselves.
But like the proverbial watched pot that never boils, an unwatched child never gets ready for school.
Maybe you are lucky and your kids just get their shoes on when you tell them to. Not mine. They will poke their toes into their shoes like they are making an effort. But if you look away, they just stop. Ten minutes can pass and they are still in the same pose I last saw them in.
I knew I needed the kids to finish getting ready in the kitchen where they would have adult supervision. I made a temporary spot for coats and shoes, but what I wanted were open lockers, or “cubbies” just like they have at school. I wanted each child to have their own separate spot for coats and backpacks. I wanted there to be a place for shoes and mittens to always go.
I started gathering ideas. I made a new board on Pinterest: Family Lockers. I pinned lots of images on how I needed these lockers to work for our family. Then I showed Chris so I could get him on board with my idea. Our “temporary” solution lasted a year longer than we’d wanted, so when Chris agreed to start working on the lockers and said he’d have them finished in a week, we were both excited to have them done.
Building The Lockers
Since we don’t have a mudroom between the attached garage and the kitchen, we agreed the open wall in the kitchen would work perfectly for the organizing the kids.
Chris was building the lockers from scratch with plans he was creating, so he wanted the plans to be easy. But I had spent a year dreaming of these and I had requirements. The plans for the family lockers became a democracy, a compromise between us. I needed hooks, but not too many. I needed dividers, and not too shallow. I needed shoe cubbies that were just the right size.
To start, he used vintage solid core closet doors, purchased from the local ReStore, to provide a sturdy base for the outside walls. These worked well because they mimicked design elements in other parts of the room and dining room. It was important that the lockers not look out of place and original to the house.
Next, 3/4 inch oak plywood was used for the bench and shelves. Using a kitchen chair as a guide for the bench height, Chris made it 18 inches high and 15 inches deep. Each section is about 17 inches wide, which is roomy enough for a backpack, coat, snow pants and more. A 10 inch divider between each section is deep enough to keep kids’ stuff separate and contained. The shoe shelf is wide enough for 2 pairs of shoes, and it was important to me that the lower section was high enough to accommodate boots.
We knew from past experience that using a really good primer is key to standing up to the rugged use of four kids. Chris used Bondz Maximum Adhesion Primer by Zinsser. Any small gaps between pieces of wood were filled with painter’s caulk after the primer coat and before painting.
We used gloss white paint because it’s more durable and is easier to clean than semi-gloss or matte paint. Chris used a smooth roller, which worked fine, but if he was to do it over, Chris says he would rent a commercial paint sprayer to get a smoother finish. It would have also been less work to paint all the nooks and crannies.
The finished lockers are about 6 feet wide, 15 inches deep and 6.5 feet tall. They look original to the house and create the perfect spot to keep the kids organized. Now they will just have to find other ways to stall going to school, I suppose.
The next projects are painting the built-in custom kitchen cabinets and walls and the foyer.