My first official project in our new house, part one of the mudroom, is done! James thought it was a pretty big one to tackle right off the bat, especially with a 3 month old. Originally I planned to start redoing the laundry room, but after about a month of living here, I realized how little the mudroom space was actually functioning- I needed way more space to put crap!! So that turned into priority number one. And once I get an idea...well...you've all read If You Give a Mouse a Cookie...
Here are some before shots:
With only that bench space, things were constantly piled on top of each other and falling off!
The laundry door also swung inward, which limited the space to move inside the laundry room. Even though moving it from an inward to outward swing, it makes a HUGE difference when you're trying to move laundry baskets around!
Originally I planned to get a door built for the laundry room, because trying to find a old door close to the size of your door frame is a bit tricky! But getting a custom door built like this was going to run me $500. No thank you!
I found that yellow door at one of the coolest vintage flea markets I've ever seen in my life- Treasures Antique Mall in Springville (and for $50!). It was actually a wooden screen door, but it was the exact kind of door I was looking for, so I knew I could make it work! We just had to trim off some of the bottom so it would fit in the door frame.
I used a citrus paint stripper to remove the layers of paint, and gave it a good sanding, then a couple of coats of White Dove (Benjamin Moore). I'm still undecided if I should paint the door frame (which is currently pure white) to match the door and ship lap surrounding it--what do you think?
The glass insert was ordered from Jones Paint and Glass in American Fork. I wanted to do a cool seeded glass or something, but the glass guy said he would recommend getting it tempered so it would be stronger, and all the cool glass doesn't come tempered. Wah-wah. But I'd rather have a functional, sturdy piece! (..most of the time..I'll live with it, is what I'm saying. ;-p )
Putting in the glass insert was a little annoying because the door opening wasn't perfectly rectangular, but the glass was! So we kept sliding it in and would see where I needed to sand off a little more to make it fit. Even without the silicone, that glass ain't goin' nowhere- it is THAT tight of a fit.
Right now the door doesn't "click" close into anything, it just stays mostly shut. I'm still figuring out that part, because I do want it to have some type of catch.
The vinyl decal is from Etsy and the barn handle is from Amazon.
Now let's talk built-ins! One of our friends built this for us. We had him take out the tiles on the floor so it could sit flush on the bottom since we'll also be replacing the tile in here anyway (because that peachy color is just all kinds of wrong). You can see the 2" on the bottom left exposed there, but once we re-tile it will go flush up to the sides. I'm thinking large rectangular slate-like pieces. That will probably happen next year some time!
Anyway, after testing several different stains and stain combos I couldn't find what I was looking for. I happened upon a picture on Instagram and knew instantly that it was the exact color I was after! It's called "weathered" by Old Barn Milk Paint. I used two coats then followed it up with two coats of satin polyurethane by Minwax.
The larger hooks are from Target and the smaller ones are from Amazon. The baskets on the bottom are from Walmart. (And I just realized after looking at this picture, I forgot to caulk the seams at the top of the ship lap... so just pretend that's done ;-) amazing stuff, that caulk...
This space functions a million times better now! We have lots of space for bags and coats. I usually keep our big tote bag we take to church on the top shelf. In the winter it will also house a basket with hats and gloves, and in the summer- our pool bag!
And one of the biggest changes- I Joanna Gaines-ed the snot out of it and ship lapped the whole thing. It seems like an intimidating project, but it really isn't. This is actually faux ship lap- just pieces of plywood ripped into strips (as opposed to the real tongue and groove stuff). I dedicated most of a day to working on it, so I think I had the whole thing up in a few days time. There are plenty of tutorials out there on how to do this- just give it a quick Pinterest search!
I decided to do it on the wall outside of the mudroom too to kind of draw it out a little bit and make that wall more interesting. It definitely makes the whole mudroom so much brighter! I actually didn't want to nail anything into that particular wall, because I could hear water running down that wall, but nothing was coming up on my metal detector, so I knew there were some PVC pipes. To avoid hitting one, I ended up gluing all of the boards onto this wall. That did take a bit longer, but better that than a leak in my basement!
That open door is the half bath, which got a new coat of paint somewhere in this whole process (Sea Salt by Sherwin Williams, to match the laundry room). I'll share some pictures later when I've done a couple more things in there!
The view from across the dining area..
Our dining table I refinished a couple of years ago (here) and the chairs are from Amazon.
(P.S. Major life hack- just about everything you see in stores, like these chairs, can also be found on Amazon. We have an Amazon credit card with 5% cash back that has been one of the greatest things ever- we've racked up a lot of free stuff because of it!)
Our dining light fixture is from West Elm. It doesn't look like that exact one is available anymore, but they have some similar styles.
And since I'm in this space, might as well share my bar cart that I'm beyond obsessed with! (Also from...Amazon!)
It's actually gotten a lot of use over the few months that we've had it.
Not like I needed to justify my purchase...I didn't. ;-)
My clock is from Hobby Lobby- and for $70...whaaa?! It comes brown, but I
just unscrewed the numbers and slapped some white paint on there.
We'll have a hot cocoa bar for the next many months (because cold weather lasts forever here). I love these Torani drink syrups- something else we've gotten a ton of use out of! Our favorites for hot chocolate are toasted marshmallow, brown sugar cinnamon, and caramel. We have other flavors in our pantry too for sodas! We may have a slight drink addiction.
And as much as you'd think my kids would be all into this and constantly getting into it- they actually don't. I know- it surprises me too.
It was fun to do, but I'm glad this part is over!
So now that phase one is complete, I'm heading into the laundry room next.
I'll be removing the current sink and putting in a farmhouse style sink (that will likely by my Christmas present!), adding some open shelving, and then a subway tile back splash. And last but not least, we'll be redoing the tile flooring.
Since I'm really ADD when it comes to house projects, I also have a few "in-between" projects planned along the way!