Lesson in Futility

 When we put an addition on our house, I decided that with so many kids, we had to have a mud room.  I had visions of it looking like the picture above. 
Sure. I nailed it. Picture on the right.

Our mud room in reality has MUD. The kids never ever ever line their shoes up neatly. Wet gloves hastily thrown down have ruined the beautiful wood bench and the cat sleeps on who ever's coat is left lying around. I don't actually like to even look at our mud room. 

It would seem senseless to complain about this. The room is obviously doing what it was intended to do. Should you even try to make a mud room look beautiful?
I think about this and other oxymorons in my spare time.