We Have Not Been Good To Our Mud Room, But Things Are Going To Change. Like The Scene In Cinderella When She Gets Invited To The Ball - The Tide Starts Turning At That Point, And She's Just One Fairy Godmother Away From Greatness. I Hope Our Mud Room Has A Fairy Godmother. I Could Use The Help.

I would like to issue a formal apology.  To our mud room.  I was checking out a design blog this morning and came upon an article, with tons of pictures, featuring Aerin Lauder's (Estee's granddaughter) home in Aspen.  It's a lovely abode, as one would expect, but one photo stopped me dead in my tracks.  The caption read, "Aerin's perfectly appointed mud room."  I couldn't take my eyes off it.  It was stunning.  Now, I've worked in the biz, so I know this whole thing has been staged to look fantastic, but seriously, I never imagined a mud room could look that good, even with a professional snapping the shots.

Our mud room is not stunning.  Nor, is it well-appointed.  I know there is a bench in there along a wall, but I've not confirmed that visually in months.  I trust it's still there because without it, the Everest-sized wall of stuff that sits on it would be levitating in mid-air.  My logical mind tells me that's impossible, but when we bought this house I would have also felt that the level of disgust the mud room has achieved was also impossible.  I have been proven wrong.

In our old house, we had no mud room.  All the things people left behind as they stepped into our home ended up in a small hallway off the entrance to the garage.  Because this area was considered part of the main house, I made a mild effort to keep it somewhat in order.  But now we have the luxury of a mud room and, instead of treating this hard-working space with the love and respect it deserves, it has become a room-sized equivalent to a junk drawer.

You know something is wrong when you want to hide it (like when we stand alone in the pantry cramming a fun-size Baby Ruth in our mouth, or is that just me?).  We regularly shut the door to the mud room when we have people over and I've even been encouraging the children to bring their friends into our home through the front.  This is not how I envisioned life with a mud room would be.  But, now that Spike (God rest his soul) is no longer residing in the mud room, I have a good deal of new space to work with in there.  And before this additional square footage is overtaken by the tidal wave of junk heading straight for it, I'm going to step in (carefully) to add some style and structure.

I realize our mud room will likely never be worthy of a photographic spread, but at the very least, I no longer want to feel ashamed of it.  And, it'll be nice not to have people sign an injury waiver and show proof of an updated tetanus vaccination before they enter our home.  That's no way to live.

I'm wearing this today.

I want to be ready if the opportunity to try on a few pairs of boots arises while I'm out erranding.  Skinny jeans are required for a clear read on boot viability.

gratitude:  a clearer vision, taking action, twisting yoga poses, resources

thanks and love.