How are ya’ll not bringing the farm onto your inner flooring and rugs? I’ve got a mud room that’s tiled and a few rugs to stop the dirt in its tracks, but still not happy with the amount of dirt coming in too far and onto surfaces I don’t want ruined.
Is there a certain brand of rug for inside, outside or are all of you taking off your shoes? We’re not good about that especially Mr. PW.
Please do share what works for you.
We have a slate-tiled mudroom with two rugs, and on a completely dry day and if I’m just going the 15ft into the kitchen and back out, I’ll leave shoes on. But 99% of the time, shoes come off and we put on house slippers. Put a boot jack in the mudroom, so you can just slip your shoes off easily-- I use it even for street shoes.
Mr PW can take up the floor cleaning duties if that will help convince him LOL
Boot scraper outside, boots off in mudroom.
Boots off at the door. If you do come in shod, you stay on the tile, period, and you clean up after yourself while I glare at you.
I have a tiled sunroom that doubles as a mudroom, but I also remove my shoes the instant I come in the door. I also have hard surface floors (hardwood and linoleum) throughout the house, so if I do still manage to track any debris in, cleanup is easy. Carpet and rugs really aren’t compatible with my lifestyle. Lol.
There is a sort of step in overshoe sandal sold at my local farm store that goes over ones shoes so it can be put on when entering with dirty shoes for a short trip into the interior of the house. It would still need to change out of dirty shoes or boots for longer periods inside but for a quick trip to bathroom or kitchen or wherever, this would work.
Back door with hooks for hay covered outer garments and dirty shoes lined up on the wall beneath. Then, you can strip down to skivvies and throw nasty clothes in the laundry room to your left. If it’s really bad, the back bathroom shower is a few steps up to your right. We have more than just horses, so we can get pretty nasty outside. No one wears shoes in our house. Rugs by every door to leave them. The front door has “town shoes” and the back door is the only door to come in after chores.
Boot scrape, mudroom, remove all boots/dirty clothing in mudroom. Which is swept and rugs shook out about 5 times a day. Towels in mudroom for wiping dogs’ feet. When boots are really muddy we’ll take them off on the stoop outside and feet go directly into slip on shoes before walking into the mudroom. Socks removed and shook outside, if needed. We spend a lot of time standing in the doorway yelling inside for someone to bring us something, so we don’t have to keep taking everything off. And when it’s been raining, I’ll just dunk my muddy rubber wellys in a bucket that has accumulated rainwater outside —instant clean!
Shoes off, or “shoe slippers” if you’re in and out often enough.
Years ago took all carpet out of the house. Yes, the barn shoes stay outside but the dogs never ever wipe their feet, never shake off the hay, leafs and whatever else they rolled in off. Then the horses, they still attempt to come in the kitchen to find their own food.
We just bought more brooms.
I do a whooole lot of sweeping 
All laminate, hardwood & tile here.
I have a tiny mudroom where there are hooks for barncoats & boots come off here. Usually… 
I keep an old bath towel folded by the door into the kitchen (1st room from mudroom) & if I need to go out again in a hurry, wipe off the worst there.
But, my daily barnwear - sweats, t-shirts jacket-du-jour - lives on a kitchen chair & that accrues its own little pile of hay wisps & barn etcetera underneath 
On a similar note, we have a Roomba in our vinyl-floored kitchen that my husband starts every morning when he gets up (first one up) - we could just schedule it but don’t bother. The kitchen is the 2nd room (after the mudroom) that you enter from the front, and the first (after the brick-floored back screen porch) coming in from the back. Later in the day the Roomba might be dropped into the mudroom or the rest of the 1st floor.
The mudroom is usually pretty gritty but we let it build up before cleaning. We have more grit than mud coming in, due to soil and driveway and winter road treatment.
You guys are great and love your ideas. I have a boot brush scraper but it was disgusting from mud with the barn project. I’ll clean it and we’ll start using. Also ordered a boot jack puller. Thanks for the idea.
We have no carpet (all wood/tile floors) but have area/oriental rugs in many rooms and had them professionally cleaned (after 8 yrs of renovations). I like a rug in a room but sure is hard w the farm.
Our mud room is tiled and has hooks for coats etc. I’m sweeping multiple times a day and see you are too.
What I’m after now is a new rug to help stop dirt. What retailer would you look at? Orvis, Plow and Hearth, LL Bean? Any great ideas on that.
LL Bean used to, maybe still does, have a “mud rug” that allegedly soaked up all kinds of dirt and moisture, to use as a first step into an entryway. But it’s more of a mat than a rug, as in, not really big enough to use farther in the house.
Our whole front porch is brick and so is the entire ground floor and basement of our farmhouse. Brick, to us, seemed the best approach. Impervious to our rough ways and there is no shine to maintain, nor do we have to worry about damaging it. It’s ‘farmy’ We remove our outside shoes outside the front door. But as clanter mentioned above: dogs. We have five and they come in go out…
I have Persian rugs at all the doors that i switch-out fairly often, and all over the house many more. Before arriving into any of the civilized spaces, every foot an paw will have walked over a couple of persian rugs MADE for rough traffic… And as with most Persian rugs they are MADE for dirt! In fact, i’ve been shopping at rug bizaars in the middle east where vendors put rugs out on the street for folks to walk, ride bikes over. Dirt lifts the pile and mellows the colors…there is an expression told to visitors, who when invited inside, hesitate and it roughly translates: “do not begrudge my rug your dirt” I have a LOT of persian rugs, most of which are rolled and stored, that i change out every couple of years. It’s pretty easy to clean a handmade Persian rug…and they improve with age. Here’s a photo of my drying my household full of the old ones when i changed out one year
We also have the dog crates in the mudroom so they don’t track in mud either!
Our mud room has those coco mats - I think I got ours from Ikea? One right inside the door from the outside and one at the door into the house - they do a great job of cleaning boots and feet. Inside the house, I cannot sing enough praises for ruggables. We have hardwood throughout the first floor and while they’re not cozy under your feet, they are invaluable when you have a muddy dog who narrowly escapes you with the paw towel.
I don’t have a mudroom unfortunately and we take all shoes off at the door ( mostly). That is just a part of country living and farm life. I do a lot of sweeping and vacuuming trying to keep it at bay.
@eightpondfarm I had no idea Persian rugs were made for dirt and all that you shared is fascinating. I can almost picture your beautiful rugs all through the house and my dirt wouldn’t bother me if I had the same.
Funny too, at first glance, I thought your rugs were cross country jumps. I thought “Why is she showing us her course?” There you are drying your rugs in the field! How DO you clean them? I just spent $800 on professional cleaning and can’t be doing that every year ya know.
But cleaning rugs sounds like a lot of heavy, hard work.
I’m really enjoying this thread everyone. Thank you!
On the driveway…I get a tub and a mop and a squeegie, (one of the professional window washer ones on a pole) a hose and a gallon of white vinegar. First i fill the tub with about 10 gallons of water and 1 gallon of vinegar and schlopp it all over… THE VINEGAR is important, it sets the dyes. (if it’s a large rug i’ll double the amounts above)… i let that soak in and slosh it around some with my mop. Then i start hosing and squeegeying. hose and squeegie. I turn it over and get the back after it seems water is running clear. Then turn it back over again rinse and squeegie another time or two… put some powdered laundry detergent in my tub and fill with water(really really mild powdered laundry soap), and schlopp all around with my mop, and then rinse and squeegie until water runs clean. Making sure i turn it over and get the back every once in a while too. I roll it up WITH the pile and lean it up against the side of the house for about a half hour. Then i back my gator up and push the roll ontop of the back of the gator, drive out to the field and drop it off, unroll it and let it dry. I move it over every day. It takes about four days to totally dry. The ground does a fantastic job of leeching all aroma out of the rug too…it’s like…magic.
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