I live in the North East. Upstate New York. That means snow. Snow means shoveling and outdoor playing. That means lots of wet boots, gloves, hats, scarves and coats. Wet “stuff” becomes an issue rather quickly in our house once the winter starts. And when you have a day like last Wednesday where folks were out shoveling 3 different times during the day (hello-11 inches of snow!) then you’ve got triple the number of wet hats and gloves to deal with.
I don’t have a mudroom. I barely have a coat closet. The door to the outside dumps right into my kitchen without anywhere to put your stuff and wet snow, dirt and ice melt get tracked in by people and dog alike. There’s a counter but it’s always covered with all the stuff of everyday life. We do have a side door that goes down to our unfinished and unimproved basement, but it’s never really been set up well to act as a “mudroom”. Houses in Maine where I grew up mostly had “mudrooms”–and I dearly wish I had one here!
When Walmart asked me to share a home decor or outdoor living idea for winter, I knew that rather than “pretty” I was going to go with “practical” and fix this problem once and for all! My basement needed a winter drying station! Wouldn’t you know it–I put this together on Tuesday, and on Wednesday we got that 11 inches of snow! As they say in the theater–timing is everything.
The items I used to put together this station were very simple. In the home organization section of my Walmart I found the 3 Arm Drying Rack (they also make a 6 arm rack!), a 10 pk of plastic hangers and the 3 Pair Boot Organizer. Over in the Laundry section (where the ironing boards and laundry baskets are-not the soap) I found the Multi Purpose Hanger Clips.
The boot rack was super simple to assemble–it just snaps and slides together. The Tripod came in two pieces that snap together–then you push a button and extend out the legs, push another button and extend out the drying arms. Easy! Plus it can all fold down and be stored away in very little space when you don’t need it (although I’ll probably just leave it up for the whole winter and only tuck it away once spring hits. . . although you know it would be great to throw outside near the hottub to handle towels and such. . . )
Although you can just toss a jacket over each of the arms and call it good, with the hangers you can fit much more on the rack. Each jacket or pair of snowpants can go on a hanger. I placed 3 clips each on 4 different hangers so a hat and two gloves can be clipped on to dry. Maybe that way they won’t all end up on the floor!
For some reason boots always seem to dry better when you hang them upside down–plus any snow that’s fall inside as you take everything off will have a chance to fall back out again. The rack isn’t super sturdy-but it works just fine for a couple pairs of snow boots.
So far this drying station has been working like a champ! I love that it is so portable. If clothes are damp and need to dry out faster I can always collapse the tripod, bring it upstairs and set it in front of the pellet stove to speed drying. The pellet stove is in the living room so I wouldn’t want it to live their permanently.
Even if I did have a mudroom, I think this tripod would be a great addition.
Looking for more winter home ideas? Here are a few!
How to paint a laminate fireplace.
****This is a sponsored post****
Disclosure: As a participant in the Walmart Moms Program, I’ve received product samples and compensation for my time and efforts in creating this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
This will come in very handy here at Ft. Drum (especially with 6 active kids!) Thank you for the post!
It’s always nice to have a “local” gal comment! Maybe I’ll get a chance to meet you some day–I’ve got to head up to Fort Drum at some point to get a new retiree spouse ID and ID’s for the kids (we still have their baby ones-ack!). And yes, you guys probably need a drying station even more than we do–I hope you don’t get dumped on quite as bad as Fort Drum did last year.