Where is the mudroom located? If it's in an area where guests will walk through, like near the front entrance, closed might look neater. If it's tucked away near the garage or side exit open is fine.

It also depends on what you're storing in there. If it's wet items having open storage would let them breathe and dry faster than in closed storage. Another open is to do a combination of both. Have open hooks but closed cabinets too.

Closed with slots for venting. Open looks great with two or three pretty items as shown above but never look like that in real life if they are used to capacity. I always feel like I am walking into someone else's not so neat walk in closet when I enter some open storage mudrooms. Unless it is staged for an open house not yet lived in I do not believe a space as nice as above really exists for I have never been in one that did not make me want to organize and fold other people's stuff. A hook or two maybe, all open no.

You know your children; do they ever put ANYTHING away in the drawer or closet or cabinet? This will give you your answer.

Kids who do not put away their things in drawers or cabinets in my experience will not take the time to hang a jacket on open hooks either, sadly.

How my hall looks today. There is a boot tray and four hooks open for guests. My kids are good at stowing their things cause they know I will donate stuff they fail to put away, but it is a snow day and I am watching a couple of neighbor's kids, this is what happens with kids who do not have mean mommies like me visit.

We had a house with open cubbies near the garage, away from public view and the kids always shoved their coats and backpacks in the cubbies. They looked messy but at least were off the floor.

We recently moved to a new house which has gorgeous built in closed door cubbies and I’m contemplating remodeling them for these reasons:

1. When you open these beautiful doors, you get hit by a nasty strong odor from their belongings which hasn’t dried properly. (am trying to figure out how to vent these)

2. It takes too much effort for these elementary kids to open The beautiful drawers below to put their shoes in, and even if they did manage to do that, they wouldn’t dry properly - again. Need venting.

3. These kids can’t seem to find their belongings when they are not openly visible to them, causing a lot of stress during those late mornings.

4. You can fit a lot more things in open cubbies versus having to account for door and drawer fronts.

If anyone has advice on how to make closed door systems more real-life friendly, I’m all ears. But for now, I’m investigating my options on how to convert the cubbies to be more open without ripping the whole thing out.