Mud-Proof Your Home with These 10 Steps
Most folks spend more time praying for rain than preparing for the consequences of it.
Due to this, we typically find ourselves running around looking for old towels to use on wet paws and chasing muddy children down the hall when we start seeing it get muddy outside.
Here are 10 must-do tips to help you keep mud out of your house when the next rainstorm passes through.
- Designate just one or two entrances for muddy feet and paws.
Allowing people to only come in and go out through one door makes clean up much easier. When you decide on the room, try to make sure it does not have immediate access to any couches or chairs your pets and kids are going to make a mad dash for.
Remember, this room may get bad after kids and pets come indoors, and their clean up means your clean up. Prepping for ourselves is one thing but prepping for kids and pets takes a different mindset. A garage, laundry room, mud room or kitchen usually works best and is likely to have a floor that is easy to clean.
- Use your mud room or create one.
If you are lucky, you have a mud room that protects your home from getting mud tracked into it. A good mud room usually has a door both coming in from the outside as well as going into the home. It traps all the mess in one space before being tracked into your house.
If you do not have a room, with a little bit of craftiness, you can create one from an existing room. Make it one that will be easy to clean up and close to your washer and dryer, so clothing items can be put into them and not carried through your home. If you do not have a washer and dryer on an exterior room, and if you can’t make space next to them, then make sure you have a basket in your designated “mud room.”
Garages that have a door leading inside work great, as do covered porches. Wherever you choose, remember to have it be a place that’s easy to clean and that can store muddy shoes and wet clothes.
- Use a mat-and-rug system at every entrance.
Since your goal is to keep mud out of your home, make sure every door has a mat outside and a rug inside. The mat should be something that makes it easy for guests to get the mud off their feet. Also, the carpet shouldn’t be your very best as it will undoubtedly be getting dirty during the mud season. Save the nice rugs for when the rain stops. Instead, put down rugs you can place in the washing machine or throw away in a couple of months when you do not have to worry about mud anymore.
- Teach your dogs and children to stay on the rugs.
Teaching kids and pets to stay on the rugs and mats while they take off their shoes or have their paws wiped off is going to save your floors and furniture from lots of mud messes.
- Keep muddy shoes off your floors.
Having some type of system for where people put their shoes will keep your home safe from mud tracks. Designate a place where everyone deposits muddy shoes. A shoe rack works great, or makeshift one if you have the space.
- Keep towels by the door.
Not only will keeping a towel by the door come in handy for wiping off wet kids and paws, try having a place where it can be hung up to dry so it can be re-used. You will get tired of washing towels if every time one is used it is thrown into the dirty laundry.
Depending on how many kids and pets you have, or how often you are coming in and out, you may want to have more than one towel handy.
- Invest in drying options for clothes and shoes.
When you have wet boots coming into your house, have a boot dryer there so they can go straight onto it when they are taken off.
When it comes to other items, have a drying rack clothing can hang on, so you do not have to get your laundry room wet and moldy by having wet clothing all over it. Let the items dry, then you can take them to the laundry room and wash them.
And by the way, when you do wash them, you may want to keep muddied items separate—a mesh laundry bag is a great way to achieve this. Some can even be used to separate items in the wash itself.
- Cover your porches and patios.
Having a covered porch where people can come in out of the rain and remove shoes, coats, and hats will keep your home free of those items making a mess in it. Make sure you have all the items there that they will need to dry off before walking into your house.
- Install gutters near doorways.
Installing gutters will keep guests from being drenched when they walk into your home and could ultimately put water where you want it to go instead, like your garden.
- Install good ground covers.
Make sure your walkway is made of stone, even gravel. Having guests walk through mud to enter your home will end up in a mess. Having large spots of grass, and worse, bare areas of dirt will create more mud and more mess for you to clean up. Plant things in these areas that will not only cover the ground, but also soak up the water, and remove that unnecessary mud mess.
After you’ve done all the necessary tricks to keep the mud out, make sure you have a path from where your guests park to your front door so they don’t have to walk through a mess to get into your home.
With a little bit of planning and preparation, you can be ready for this upcoming mud season.