My Pretty New Mudroom :)

A month or so ago we finished (mostly) re-making our old laundry room (during the bathroom remodel we made Matt's closet over into a new upstairs laundry, freeing up this space). As you can maybe tell from the before pictures, it was a cramped, crowded, always messy transition space from the garage into the house - performing neither the job of laundry nor mudroom very well. Four coat hooks is not enough for a family of six, that basket on the shelf was holding hats and mittens for 4 kids plus Matt - no one could find anything -  and there was a constant pile of shoes on the floor....

The washer and dryer were always piled with stuff the kids had dumped on it, or things waiting to be washed, and the two cabinets weren't big enough to hold all the things we needed them to...

 It was an awkward narrow room with two doors opening into it.

 

 As you can imagine, as soon as my upstairs laundry was functional, the washer and dryer were hauled immediately out to the garage, and we finally had some breathing room! The first thing I did was find a church pew on ebay that fit our space - a place to sit and take your shoes on and off. Next I bought a 3x4' cubed shelf unit at the unfinished furniture store & painted it black - goodbye rickety old shoe rack, hello everyone gets there own shoe space. And finally, back in late July/early August, Matt pulled down the cabinets, pulled up the floor, and we got busy renovating. I love me a Handy Hubby!

Matt spent one weekend tiling the room - it's only about 6 ft by 8 ft so one weekend was plenty - and the next weekend he put up beadboard & trim, replaced the baseboards, and made me a shelf for above. I think I finished painting the room the Thursday before we left for the beach (that was fun, having one day to pull everything together and pack). And finally after the beach, he made me ginormous wall cabinets to go above & hold a lot of the bigger kitchen items I have no room for and other what-not.

It's still a tiny space and hard to get picture of, but here's where we are today :)

View coming in the door from the garage

Beadboard is painted swiss coffee and walls are Celery from Lowes' Valspar collection. Tile is from Lowes as well, a slate-looking porcelain called midnight copper; rug is from JC Penney.

View from the house headed out to the garage

The pillow and all bins are from Target; church pew from Ebay, pillow top hooks are flat black and ordered somewhere online - all the stores seemed to have was oil-rubbed bronze.

Everyone gets a bin for mittens/hats/swim goggles/what-have-you. Metal frames are from the scrapbooking section at Michaels, letters printed using the Twilight font :)

My ginormous shelves that still need doors.

We replaced the old fluorescent light fixture with a semi-flush light before Matt had built the cabinets, not realizing that it would interfere with the cabinet doors. I then spent a week searching for a light that would be bright enough, yet shallow enough, to suit me. Choices are slim, but I found one, and am waiting for it to be installed...

Shoe cubbies! And yes, Evie still leaves her shoes on the floor :(

A catch-all for keys and sunglasses, and a picture that makes me happy

A place to sit and remove your shoes, or have a quiet phone call

Room below for a boot tray for wet/muddy things; or Matt's shoes that don't fit in his bin.

And finally - the exterior door to the garage, I painted it black. Because it was mostly black anyway, what with all the scuffs and scrapes on it. We're waiting for the paint to cure before we add a kickplate to it (to cover up the dents from where people have KICKED it...) and here is where I have a question:

I'd like to put something in vinyl in the center of the door, but it seems silly to put our house number in the garage; I could go with 'welcome' (and may end up doing that yet) but I'm looking for suggestions - Hello on one side, Goodbye on the other? Help me out here, I'm really not that clever :)