It occurs to me that not only could you do this with a couple of bags of craft store (or better on the budget, Dollar Store) river rocks, but you could take a couple of those river rock mosaic tiles and put them in a tray, too. (Purpose bought or leftover from a floor job??)

HEY!!! I have some leftover 2 inch slate tile mosaic sheets left from my backsplash!!! I just put this together for myself! (And it would match the room!) Thanks for the inspiration!

Yes, these trays look gorgeous!

But it's not only rain or snow sticking to the rubber boots. What, if they are dirty? Then the nice rocks will get dirty too - and you have not only to clean the boots but the rocks too.

This winter I had more than enough opportunities to deal with this exact problem. I want to keep my rubber boots inside, but most often I was not in the mood for cleaning them straight away after hours in the cold and wet.

I use a tray too but have it lined with a thick layer of newspaper. Not half as nice as the rocks but more practical.

Still, I'm looking for the ultimate solution.

Molly
www.katzentisch.com

I love these, but it occurs to me that my dog would try to eat all of these little rocks.

It seems like to keep the rocks clean all you'd have to do is maybe rinse them in the sink, or hose them off in the backyard if you can.

My question is: does the tray dry out, if it gets all wet, or is it something you need to empty out yourself? Does it smell of mildew after a while?

Looks beautiful!

I'm curious if it's hard to keep dry/clean. Does the melted water just kind of sit there in the bottom of the tray?

In my house, those would dry up quickly--we're super dry with the heat on often.
If I had space, I'd love to do this with our bags of river rocks!

I did this with a tray that had a piece of carpeting inside, and covered it with one of those pebble "rugs". The rocks are glued to a mesh (like the mosaic tiles), and I just cut the mesh to size. Two pieces were needed, but they blend very well. Looks great and I guess it's really easy to rinse the pebbles, although it doesn't look like it's needed yet.

My first thought: This is cute! I want to make one!
My second thought: The cat is going to try and poop in it.

we used leftover wood flooring slats for this and they looked and worked great--

Thanks so much for posting my Boot Tray!
We've used the pebble boot tray through two wintery seasons now, I don't step in a lot of mud, we're in Vancouver so rain is our most common problem. The pebbles dry out really fast! I've put soaking wet boots and shoes on there and had no problems. I've never had a probelm with mildew or any funky smells. At the end of last season I took the rocks out gave them a rinse in a strainer and put them back. But I don't have a cat so i'm not sure about the pooping in it thing :)
One of our readers used the pebbles with the mesh backing so her kids couldn't steal all the rocks out:) She said it worked great!
Hope that helps
Thanks again for featuring our little boot tray

I want to try this too! I'm thinking it would be easy to clean if you glued the rocks to the tray -- then you could rinse the whole thing out easily with a hose or dump excess water out without having to rearrange all the rocks.

Mindy is a great example of the best in AT posting.
Positive and a great option to the questions of previous posters.
I know most posts are thinking out loud, but so many times I see a great idea that might need a bit of tweaking get shot down because it wouldn't work for that poster exactly as is.

I love the idea of gluing the rocks down.
I'd probably glue larger rocks down and infill with the smaller ones I collect, but Mindy's glue idea made this idea snap together for me.
Thanks, AT, thanks Mindy.

And I still might go with redwood chips over the large rocks... Next years compost and mulch.

@ Maillardvillemanor ...I grew up in Coquitlam! Greetings neighbor!
I think this is a great idea for our rainy seasons, which is all 4 some years!