Mudroom Cabinets: Locker Sizes, Bench Heights and Priced Layouts

The quickest way to build mudroom cabinets is out of the boxes a kitchen is already made of: an 18-inch-wide, 24-inch-deep tall cabinet for each locker, a 16⅜-inch drawer bench seat between them, and an open wall box above the bench for hats and bags. In Fabuwood Galaxy's painted colors, a 60-inch bench wall with cubbies is $1,846.65 and a 96-inch wall with two full-height lockers is $4,268.55, before the seat top, cushions, hooks and installation. Every price below is a real SKU's displayed price, and every size comes from a manufacturer spec book.

We sell cabinets for a living and build with them, so this is the order we'd draw your entry in: count people and coats, pick sizes, do the seat math, price the wall. Laundry storage has its own guide, and the tall-cabinet depth question for food lives in our pantry cabinet guide.

Key Takeaways

• Locker: a Galaxy single-door tall cabinet, 15 or 18 inches wide, 12 or 24 inches deep, 84 to 96 inches high, $871.00 to $1,150.50. Take the 18 × 24; the 15 opens to only about 12 inches.
• Bench: the DBS24, DBS30 and DBS36 drawer bench seats ($338.00, $383.50, $425.75) are 16⅜ inches high with an open top. A ¾-inch seat and a firm 2-inch cushion finish at about 18⅝ inches.
• Cubbies: no-door wall boxes with a painted interior, $328.25 to $741.00. Open costs more than doored: NDW3630 is $468.00, W3630 is $422.50.
• Priced walls: $1,846.65 (60-inch bench wall), $2,568.15 (one shared closet tower), $3,588.65 (two lockers), $4,268.55 (96-inch family wall).
• Not in a cabinet order: seat tops, cushions, hooks, closet rods and boot trays. Plan them, but buy them locally.
• Garage entries: wood cabinets belong in heated, conditioned space. Fabuwood's warranty excludes rooms without year-round environmental controls.

Table of Contents

• Lockers, Closed Cabinets or Hooks: Decide What the Entry Needs
• Mudroom Locker Dimensions: Width, Depth and Height
• The Bench: Seat Height From a 16⅜-Inch Drawer Box
• Mudroom Lockers With Doors vs Open Cubbies
• Mudroom Storage Cabinets: Four Priced Wall Layouts
• Custom-Built Mudroom Cabinets, RTA or a Cabinet Program
• Boots, Salt and Wet Coats
• Garage Entries and Unheated Rooms
• Color: Match the Kitchen or Go Green
• Before You Order: A Mudroom Checklist
• Frequently Asked Questions

Lockers, Closed Cabinets or Hooks: Decide What the Entry Needs

Count three things first: the people who use this door daily, the coats each keeps in rotation in January, and the shoes that live at the door. A family of four with two coats and three pairs each is eight coats and twelve pairs, plus bags and sports gear.

Then choose among three kinds of storage; most good entries use all three:

• Hooks over a bench are the fastest. A coat goes on in one motion, which is why children use them.
• Tall closed cabinets hide the second coat, the vacuum, the sports bags and anything that looks messy.
• Open cubbies above the bench hold hats, gloves and a basket per person.

Our starting rule: one station (a hook pair and a bin) per daily user, plus one closed tower for every two people. Put the bench within a step or two of the door, or shoes pile up at the threshold anyway.

Mudroom Locker Dimensions: Width, Depth and Height

A built-in locker made from a cabinet is a tall pantry box with most of its shelves left out. In Fabuwood Galaxy the single-door version comes 15 or 18 inches wide, 12 or 24 inches deep, and 84, 90 or 96 inches high in the painted colors priced here (a 93-inch height is offered only in Frost, Dove, Indigo and Timber). The spec book shows each one with two stacked doors: a 49¼-inch lower door and an upper door of 29½, 35½ or 41½ inches depending on the height. Shelves ship loose (five on the 84-inch box, six on taller ones), so leaving some out costs nothing.

Width. Take 18 inches for a locker whenever the wall allows it. Galaxy's face frame has 1½-inch stiles, so the door opening is about 3 inches narrower than the box: a 15-inch tower opens to roughly 12 inches, and an 18 opens to roughly 15. A backpack or tall boots go through 15 inches easily. The step from 15 to 18 inches costs about $150 to $170 at each height. Where one wider closet makes more sense than two lockers, the two-door TP24 runs from $1,241.50 (24 × 12 × 84) to $1,397.50 (24 × 24 × 96).

Depth. For a locker, depth is about whether a coat fits, and it barely moves the price: $26.00 to $32.50 between 12 and 24 inches at the same width and height. A 24-inch box has 21-inch-deep shelves and takes a coat on hooks, a coat on a hanger turned front to back, or a stack of bins. A 12-inch box has about 11 inches inside, which fits hooks for light jackets, hats and a broom, not a parka. Our estimate for a hanging adult coat is 20 to 22 inches of clear depth, so if you want hangers inside, it's the 24 or nothing. A closet rod, if you want one, is fitted on site.

Height. Match the tower to the ceiling and to the door head nearby. An 84-inch tower leaves room for crown under an 8-foot ceiling; a 96-inch tower fills that ceiling with nothing to spare. Our wall and tall cabinet guide has the full height tables, and why cabinets step in 3-inch widths explains why the wall will rarely come out exact.

One detail to confirm on your quote: whether a fixed shelf sits at the door split. If it does, the lower compartment is about four feet tall. That suits children's coats, backpacks and boots, but not an adult's long coat; those go on open hooks over the bench.

The Bench: Seat Height From a 16⅜-Inch Drawer Box

Fabuwood's drawer bench seat comes as DBS24, DBS30 and DBS36, at $338.00, $383.50 and $425.75 in the Galaxy painted colors. The spec book drawing shows a box 16⅜ inches high and 24 inches deep with an 11¼-inch drawer front, and it describes the build as "standard base construction with open top and panel beams dovetailed into side panels." There's no top in the carton. You supply the seat.

Stack the layers from the floor up:

1. The box stands 16⅜ inches.
2. A ¾-inch plywood or hardwood seat top brings the deck to 17⅛ inches. That's a good seat on its own, and shrugs off snow.
3. A firm 2-inch foam cushion compresses to roughly 1½ inches under an adult, which puts the seat at about 18⅝ inches.
4. A thick, soft cushion pushes past 19½ inches, too high for small children.

Aim for 17 to 19 inches. Let the seat top overhang the drawer front by about an inch so the drawer clears it, and keep any cushion back from that edge, or opening the drawer means lifting the cushion first.

The drawer is a ⅝-inch dovetailed solid-wood box on Blum Tandem runners with Blumotion soft close, the same spec as the kitchen drawers. It's shallow: gloves, hats, dog leads and keys, not boots standing up. Our dovetail drawer guide covers the box itself.

Length. Plan about 24 inches of bench per adult and 18 per child sitting at the same time. Because the three widths step in 6 inches, a run is built from 36s, with a 24 or 30 only to close the length: 60 inches is 36 + 24, 72 is 36 + 36, and 96 is 36 + 36 + 24. Leftover inches go to end fillers.

For an upholstered or paneled front, each size is also listed as a carcass-only part: DBS24-BO $217.75, DBS30-BO $247.00, DBS36-BO $273.00. Confirm exactly what ships in that carton before you choose it.

Mudroom Lockers With Doors vs Open Cubbies

Open lockers are faster and let damp gear dry; doors hide the mess.

An open box costs more than the same size with doors, because an ordinary wall cabinet is lined with natural wood veneer that nobody sees, while the "matching interior" boxes are painted inside to match the face. Across the 15 sizes in these colors (15 to 36 inches wide; 30, 36 or 42 inches high; all 12 inches deep) they run $328.25 to $741.00. Width is cheap and height expensive: a 36 × 30 is $468.00, a 36 × 42 is $741.00.

Keep wet coats on open hooks and only dry things behind doors. The EPA puts the rule plainly: "The key to mold control is moisture control," and it advises drying water-damaged items within 24 to 48 hours.

Mudroom Storage Cabinets: Four Priced Wall Layouts

Four walls we draw often, priced at the displayed Galaxy prices for the painted colors (these are Nickel's figures; the Pistachio Green listings we checked show the same prices). Oak finishes cost more. Every total includes the toe kick (TK8, $55.90 per 8-foot stick) and the fillers or end skins the wall needs. Totals exclude the seat top, cushions, hooks, rods and installation.

Layout A suits a couple or a narrow hall; hooks go on the wall between the seat and the cubbies. A 3-inch filler at each wall, under the bench and beside the cubbies, gives the scribe room no alcove is square enough to skip.

Layout B puts one 24-inch two-door closet at the open end, where it also shields the bench from the doorway. Its two 12-inch leaves swing less far than one wide door.

Layout C is the classic locker look: an 18-inch tower each side, a 36-inch bench between. With both tower ends exposed, the two SK TALL skins aren't optional. On a 24-inch-deep tower the side is bigger than the front. Built into an alcove instead, swap the skins for a 3-inch tall filler (TF396, $84.50) at each wall.

Layout D seats two adults and a child, or three children, on 60 inches of bench, with two towers and two cubbies. The 96 inches of boxes take a 3-inch filler at each wall so the doors clear, and we price two toe-kick sticks because one exactly equals the run.

Swap any open cubby for its doored twin and the total drops: W3630 is $45.50 less than NDW3630, and W2430 at $364.00 is $91.00 less than NDW2430. For how skins, end panels and fillers differ, see cabinet skin panels and gables and end panels, scribe and fillers. In Layout B the bench end meets a wall, so it takes a 3-inch base filler, with a matching 3-inch wall filler (WF330, $26.00) beside the cubby so it lines up over the bench; a bench end left open to the room would take an SK BASE skin at $62.40 instead.

Custom-Built Mudroom Cabinets, RTA or a Cabinet Program

A carpenter's site build fits any wall to the sixteenth, and the locker dividers can be any width. You pay for the finish: site painting takes days and rarely matches a factory-finished kitchen. Carpenter rates vary too much by region to quote; compare two bids against a cabinet quote.

A cabinet program such as Galaxy arrives assembled and factory-finished in the same paint as the kitchen, with Blum hinges already fitted. You trade custom widths for 3-inch steps and fillers. Galaxy boxes are ½-inch veneered plywood.

RTA is the budget route. US Cabinet Depot's framed line ships either ready-to-assemble or factory-assembled, with ½-inch furniture-grade plywood boxes and dovetail drawers, and its spec manual lists true utility cabinets: two-door U188424, U189024 and U189624 (18 inches wide, 24 deep, 84, 90 or 96 high), and four-door models 24 and 30 inches wide. Its manual lists no bench seat cabinet, so the bench is built on site, and we don't publish USCD utility prices, so those are quote-only. Our RTA vs pre-assembled guide and our US Cabinet Depot review weigh assembly time against the saving; the US Cabinet Depot brand page shows the door styles.

Boots, Salt and Wet Coats

Keep water off the toe kick. The toe kick sits on the floor, and a bench's toe kick sits exactly where boots drip. Put a rubber or metal boot tray in front of the bench, leave a finger's gap between tray and kick, and wipe off salt when it dries white.

Choose the box material for the room. Galaxy boxes are ½-inch veneered plywood, and USCD's framed boxes are ½-inch furniture-grade plywood. The full material comparison is in furniture board vs plywood.

Treat the painted surfaces as wear surfaces. A mid-tone paint such as Nickel or Pistachio Green hides scuffs better than a bright white. Fabuwood's warranty terms exclude damage from "exposure to moisture, humidity or excessive heat or cold," so puddles left standing against a cabinet are the owner's problem, not the factory's.

Garage Entries and Unheated Rooms

Garage mudroom cabinets usually means one of two rooms, each with a different answer.

If the mudroom is a heated room inside the house, with a door out to the garage, it's conditioned space and any of our lines will do. If the lockers would stand in the garage itself, or in an unheated porch, wood cabinets are the wrong product. The warranty terms printed in Fabuwood's Allure spec book say the warranty "does not apply to products installed in locations that do not maintain year-round environmental controls," and they recommend testing a location for moisture before installation. We don't sell metal or garage-rated cabinets, so buy those elsewhere and keep our boxes for the heated side of the door.

A laundry that doubles as the garage entry has extra constraints (machines, a sink, dryer venting). Our laundry room guide covers that room, including the fire-separation wall to an attached garage.

Color: Match the Kitchen or Go Green

If the mudroom opens into the kitchen, order the lockers in the kitchen's finish on the same order, so the paint comes from one batch. Behind a door, it's a good place for a bolder color.

Green is the color we get asked about most for an entryway cabinet. Galaxy Pistachio Green is a muted, grayed sage rather than a bright nut green, and it prices the same as the other Galaxy painted colors, so a bench in it costs the same $338.00 to $425.75. For the shades side by side, and which greens are paint and which are stain, see our green kitchen cabinet guide. Before committing a whole wall, order a Fabuwood door sample ($25) and check it in the mudroom's own light.

Before You Order: A Mudroom Checklist

What we catch most often on entry drawings:

1. Ceiling height in all four corners, measured against the lowest one. A 96-inch tower needs a 96-inch ceiling plus room to tilt it upright; our measuring guide covers the tilt check.
2. Baseboard. Decide whether it's cut out behind the bench and towers or scribed around.
3. Outlets, switches, vents and the thermostat on the wall. A register behind the bench must be moved or ducted through the toe kick.
4. Studs. Towers are screwed to studs at the top, and hooks carry wet coats and backpacks, so the hook rail needs blocking or a cleat into studs, not drywall anchors.
5. Fillers and scribe at every wall end, about 3 inches each.
6. Finished ends on every exposed tower and bench side (SK TALL $169.00, SK T12D $126.75 for a 12-inch-deep tower, SK BASE $62.40).
7. Door swing into the walkway. An 18-inch door swings 18 inches into the room. Check it against the entry door.
8. Hook heights. Our rule of thumb is adult hooks around 60 to 66 inches and a children's row lower. The ADA's unobstructed reach range is 48 inches maximum and 15 inches minimum above the floor, and reaching sideways over something up to 24 inches deep, like a bench, drops the maximum to 46 inches. For a wheelchair user, put a hook or two at 48 inches or lower on open wall beside the bench, not behind it.
9. The seat top and cushions, ordered after the boxes are set, from the real measured deck.

If you're hanging the cubby boxes yourself, our guide to hanging upper cabinets applies to them unchanged.

Frequently Asked Questions

How deep should mudroom cabinets be?

Towers used as coat lockers should be 24 inches deep; that's the depth that takes a coat on a hanger or a winter parka on a hook. Cubbies over the bench are 12 inches deep, like any wall cabinet, and the bench itself is 24. A 12-inch-deep tower works only for light jackets, hats and bags.

How tall is a mudroom bench?

Finish the seat between 17 and 19 inches off the floor. With a 16⅜-inch drawer bench cabinet, a ¾-inch seat top gives 17⅛ inches and a firm 2-inch cushion adds about 1½ inches more, for roughly 18⅝.

How wide should a mudroom locker be?

Eighteen inches is the width we recommend. It opens to about 15 inches through a framed cabinet's face frame, enough for a backpack and tall boots. A 15-inch locker opens to only about 12. Where one shared closet suits better than two lockers, use a 24-inch two-door tower.

Can you use kitchen cabinets in a mudroom?

Yes, and it's how most built-in mudrooms are made: tall pantry boxes become lockers, a drawer bench seat becomes the bench, and open wall boxes become the cubbies. The room just has to be heated and conditioned.

Are RTA cabinets worth it for a mudroom?

They're worth it if you're comfortable assembling tall boxes and your budget is tight. US Cabinet Depot's framed utility cabinets ship RTA or assembled with ½-inch plywood boxes. The catch is the bench: their spec manual lists no bench seat cabinet, so that part is built on site.

Are open lockers or lockers with doors better?

Open for the coats worn daily, because they dry and children actually hang them up; doors for overflow and for a mudroom seen from the kitchen. Most walls mix both.

What do built-in mudroom lockers cost?

At our displayed Galaxy prices for the painted colors, a 60-inch bench wall with two open cubbies is $1,846.65, one closet tower with a bench is $2,568.15, two 18-inch lockers with a 36-inch bench are $3,588.65 with finished ends, and a 96-inch family wall is $4,268.55. Seat tops, cushions, hooks and installation are extra.

Do bench seat cabinets come with a top?

No. Fabuwood's drawer bench seat is built with an open top, so you supply a ¾-inch plywood or hardwood seat, sized to overhang the drawer front by about an inch.

Get Your Mudroom Wall Drawn and Priced

Send us a sketch of the wall with its length, the ceiling height, the door and window positions and how many people use the entry. We'll return a free 3D design and an itemized quote with every tower, bench, cubby, filler and end skin on it, typically within 24 to 48 hours. Contractors building several entries can get trade pricing through Captivating Pro.

Start on our design service page, write to us through the contact page, or call 609-900-3358. Or browse the drawer bench seat cabinets and the tall cabinets in the shop.