House designers these days say having a “mud room” in the house is a must. On a farm, what some today would term as being a “mud room” could be called a “catch all room” and to all farmwives, it is a must have room. It is entered when a family member comes inside the house.
At the farm home where I grew up, my parents didn’t have a catch all room. Instead we had a screened in back porch which served as one. As in most farmhouses, the most used entrance led into the kitchen so the screened in porch was where we would place our overshoes, winter coverings and anything else not brought into the main house. Sometimes the porch would become crowded but a pathway was always available from the outdoors into the house through the kitchen door.
The first farmhouse I lived in after I married a farmer had a small porch, and like at my parents’ home, it led to the kitchen door, the entrance. We knew the small porch needed to be enclosed and a hand built closet was added. Hooks were placed on the opposite wall of the porch, across from the closet. This was to become our “catch all room.” With two boys in the family and a farmer husband, the little room and closet became filled with the necessities. The closet held at least three sizes of coveralls, caps, hats, and on the closet floor was a bucket containing numerous sizes of mittens, gloves, tins of salves to use on the livestock when needed, a can of WD40 and old towels. In another bucket was a hammer, screwdrivers, three or four pliers, a can of insect spray and even some nails and tacks. On one of the hooks inside the closet rested calf pulling chains, and on another hook was a lariat. In one corner of the closet stood the boys’ BB gun that could also be grabbed at a moment’s notice. On the top shelf of the closet was a low caliber rifle in case an unwanted varmint happened to get too close to the house. The hooks on the other wall of the closet were at first designated for my use but soon were taken over with winter coats, caps and scarves. Cowboy boots, overshoes, a broom, a scoop to remove snow from the sidewalk in the winter and a football or two could be found on the floor. A pathway was usually left from one door to the other. This “catch all” room was not large or fancy one but it worked. For years it served my farm family.
Today, our farmhouse includes a “catch all” room we designed to suit our needs. This room is also our laundry room. When we first designed the room, we had hogs and cattle and so a sink had to be included so hands could be washed when the farmer or gardener walked into the room from outdoors. The dirty overalls and jeans could be thrown right into the washing machine after coming inside. The cabinets above the washer-dryer of course contains detergent, and other laundry cleaning needs, but they also contains other farmhouse stuff such as a kerosene lamp for use when the electricity goes off, a basket filled with a hammer, pliers, screwdriver, nails, batteries, sunscreen and bug spray. Another basket contains gardening tools. Also included on the cabinet shelves are sponges, hand scrubbers, rubber gloves, masks to wear when cleaning a grain bin, light bulbs of various sizes, a battery powered drill, four or five flashlights, and of course towels and scrub rags. The closet in this room is my farmer husband’s domain and it’s filled with his necessities, such as coveralls, a hooded sweatshirt, a winter work coat, gloves, mittens, a rain slicker, many advertising caps, a cowboy hat, blankets, his water jug, a small lunch box, and a few spray paint cans that he doesn’t want to freeze. Another container holds his cattle and hog vaccination tools and supplies. Under the sink is a mat where his work boots and over boots are to be put but sometimes they get left out of the designation area.
While viewing home improvement shows or reading home designing magazines, it shows the perfect “mud rooms” with open shelves filled with baskets, all labeled as to what goes in each basket. I don’t think my baskets would always hold what was on that label. Fancy hooks on the walls show one coat or hat resting on each hook. Our hooks usually hold two or three coats or overalls. In the perfect mud room the boots are displayed all neatly lined up under the shelves. A section of each of the shelf area is designated for each of the children as when they come home from school they can hang their jackets or coats and place their artwork or homework on their shelf.
It would be nice to have had that set up in my first farm home’s “catch all” room. But even if the room would have been larger and designed as such, it never would have stayed that way. Our farm “catch all” room suited us just fine.
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