Operation Mudroom

The mudroom is finished and fully working!  Yeah!!  It is so nice to have a place to take off muddy wet boots, hang up coats and store backpacks, purses and other clutter that comprises day-to-day life!  I'll let the pictures speak for themselves, but beware...there are a bunch of them.  For other updates about the house renovations see here and here.

Here are the before shots--the day before my folks moved out (which explains all the clutter).  This had been a family room which we turned into the powder room, laundry room and mudroom.

 

This is the after--

View from the hallway, looking toward the garage door with bathroom to the left and broom closet to the right.

The broom closet and a centralized place to drop keys, pens, and other misc. stuff that you never know what to do with at any given time!

 The broom, dustpan, swiffer, vacuum, plastic bags, etc., etc., etc.  all nicely hidden away :)

The view standing at the windows and looking into the room (garage door is on the right), with the lockers on the left.

J and I share a locker and C has her own locker, which she will eventually share with Mei-Mei.  J deliberately left the space underneath open so that we could put everyday shoes and boots there.

One of the requests that I had was that he build doors so that we could close and hide the clutter.  So many of the mudrooms that I looked at on Pinterest had open cubbies, which look great when they are styled for a magazine, but not so great when you get into the day-to-day of life.  This way, no one has to see it!

 Nice and tidy, right?!  We also opted to add in a skylight, since we were changing the roof-line a bit anyway and I'm so glad that we did.  It makes the room bright and sunny.

 

 I love how this bench turned out!  It had originally been in my grandmother's house in the country.  I distinctly remember the snakeskin seat.  Totally freaked me out at the time.  When she downsized, no one had room/need of it, so we took it and it lived for 12 years up in our attic.  I knew I wanted to use it in the new house and the mudroom seemed like the perfect place--you always need to sit down when you're putting on your shoes or boots, don't you?

 The birdie material with the red gives the room a nice punch, and look at the carvings!  Love :)

While we had solved the problem regarding our own coats, we removed a closet that guests had used so we needed to figure out an alternative.  On one of our walks down by the Lake, we found a nice, flat piece of driftwood and J had the idea of using boat cleats as hooks for a coat rack.  Simple, easy and affordable.  A win-win! 

J and I couldn't decide about window treatments.  We wanted something that provided a little bit of coverage, but we also liked how we could see outside.  I found a pretty eyelet material and started out making the cafe curtains.  I was going to make a valance, but now that they are up, we kinda like them just the way they are...we'll see.  We're still toying with the idea of putting up some beadboard around and of course adding in some other "accessories".  We'll see.....and to think that in October we were living like this:



 (There is the bench...patiently waiting to be rescued!)

...and clueless about the fact that Superstorm Sandy was about to hit and wipe out power for 6 days.

I think J has totally outdone himself, don't you!?







Wordless Wednesday

(the project manager and the architect)

Snow day!

Yippeee!  The snow was floating and the wind was blowing...so much so, that we got a snow day.  It was the perfect way to start the weekend!

Any teachers out there know that the weather forecasters often predict "gloom and doom", only to have a light dusting.  Bummer.  The real trick to a snow day is for the flakes to start falling fast and heavy early in the morning.  Like 4:30 a.m.  That's what it did yesterday.  The cold wind chill also helped the cause.

 Later on in the afternoon, after the sun had come, the Noodle and I went out and romped in the snow a bit.  After about 45 minutes, she announced that she thought it would be a good idea to go in and have some real hot cocoa, not just the pretend kind we were drinking admist a snow pile.  With frozen fingers and a cold bum, I wholeheartedly agreed with her.

 We added 2 big marshmallows.  Just 'cuz.  Yum!