Shaking Things Up in the Mudroom

 

A few weeks ago I shared on Instagram, how my hubs and I began a mudroom renovation on a whim.  Our mudroom was sadly dated, and very dingy, but quickly became Sweetie’s room.  (For those who are unaware, back in April my grandmother on my father’s side passed away, so we were honored to adopt her cat, Sweetie, and she’s called this room her home ever since.)

The hubs and I were feeling so tired of the embarrassment we felt when bringing people through the mudroom when we had company since this is the main door we use, so we knew we had to do something fast.

It all started when I randomly said to him that day, ” I wonder how hard it would be to open up that wall?” Meaning the wall between the mudroom and the kitchen, and before I  knew it he had a chisel and a Sawzall in his hand.

Once we demolished everything it was pretty obvious that this area was an addition and that crazily enough, the doorway that we opened up in the wall between the mudroom and kitchen, had already existed.

We assume it was one of the original back doors, as there was wiring for a doorbell in the wall.

In one weekend, he opened up the wall, demoed the entire room (42 sq feet), and had new drywall up over the layers of randomness we found beneath the paneling, and thin brick walls.

We had the radiator that was in the room removed and capped off by our plumber, and I trimmed out the doorway with some basic 1×4’s.

Other than drywall, I decided to add floor to ceiling board and batten to the walls for interest. While I’ve had an idea of what I wanted to do in this space since the day we first walked into this home, the fine details, I have been making up as I go.  And as we are nearing completion of this update, I figured I should catch the blog up on the process so far.

 

I kept the walls light and bright with SW Snowbound paint and built a storage bench beneath the window. I had planned on doing this post in two parts (I still might–sharing the bench building process,) but since we are nearing completion of this room I figured I”d pur out all the big picture items here.

Lastly, was the floor. I think I had many of you baffled with my flooring decision (which, by the way is still playing out). I covered the old flat worn out vinyl tiles with fresh new, updated large 18” ceramica vinyl tile and laid it in a diamond pattern.  I’ve used this type of tile many times before (here, here, and here, and painted over some here)

. . . And then I primed it, which set my Instagram ablaze with questions like “Why would you lay new tile if you were just going to paint it?” And the answer to me is pretty simple, we wanted a nice fresh clean (and solid) slate. The previous “tile” was damaged, dingy, and faded.  The new tile is thick and has the consistency of real tile along with beveled edges so it actually looks like real tile, and not like roll out vinyl.

One other question I received often was “Are you going to keep the scalloped cornice?” And while in the very beginning I wanted it gone, it sort of grew on me and is really one of the only pieces of character this house has, as everything else is very simple and plain. So yes, the scallops cornice is staying and in fact, it got even more purposeful when I decided to add wall to wall window shelves over the windows.

Back to the floor: I played around with some paint ideas and then polled my Instagram followers and the results just left me more confused. So I decided to keep my final flooring decision to myself until the reveal—I’m really excited about it, and I think you all will be surprised by my decision.

Lastly, I spent some time painting the door over the weekend a warm muted rust color which I created  by mixing two Behr paint samples together (Lite Cocoa and Clay Pot) and I love it! I think this decision also threw everyone for a loop too!

What’s left to do:

• final floor design
• paint the shelves
• paint the bench
• add accessories
• find a rug

Can’t wait to share more of this space with you all!