Welcome to our DIY MUDROOM

Hello there! I-am-back! Since I went back to work in September, I haven’t had much time for my blog life. So today, I am so excited to share our MUDROOM transformation with you. Ever since we moved into our townhouse, this has been one of those things that we constantly talked about doing but never got around to. I am sure you can relate!

The bottom of our stairs has always been our “catchall” and boy was it a cluttered mess, all the time! Right next to the bottom of our stairs and the doorway to the garage, there is a tiny nook in our home. The builder grade option was a storage cabinet. Which was so not functional and we ended up just piling things on top of it. The cabinet was so shallow that nothing could really even be stored. A mudroom was always in our vision and a couple years later that vision has come to life!

So here is the before and after “catch-all.” All the decor is from Target. Tell me what you think in the comments.

So queue in Amazing Engineer Husband for the WIN! He drew up the design in auto cad to match our custom designed built ins in our living room, a few trips to The Home Depot and many weekends later…here we are!

Here is our living room built-in masterpiece for reference (also designed by Michael but created by a contractor we found on Houzz).

DIY MUDROOM DEMO DAY

So this is what we started with. Tiny nook with so much mudroom potential.

First things first, DEMO DAY! We removed this cabinet, carefully, because we have now reused it in our garage as our cleaning cabinet.

Michael removed the cabinet and part of the base moulding because we wanted to extend the bench out a few inches. He also took off the electrical plates and extended them to make room for the side paneling. He measured (twice, always) and crafted the bench box and frame.

Once the frame and bench box was secured, Michael added wood trim pieces at the bottom for a finished look. He then added the side paneling and the knotty pine bead boards.

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We definitely wanted to add a shelf at the top for additional storage, lighting and give our mudroom a nice complete look. Michael secured wood strips for the shelf to sit on and he also arranged for the lighting to hide behind the knotty pine bead board panels.

Once the shelf was finished, we framed in the entire mudroom, added back the original base board moulding by trimming it to fit (since we pushed out the bench wider than the previous cabinet).

The first coat of paint was primer and then we used the basic white paint Swiss Coffee in a flat finish.

The bench top was the last thing we did. We measured between the side paneling, knotty pine bead boards and bench frame prior to make room for sliding the bench top in for a clean look.

The bench top was made out of walnut wood pieces. We love the natural look of walnut so all we applied was a wipe on poly to give it some shine. We also added back the electrical plates.

OUR DIY MUDROOM IS FINALLY HERE!

Now to my favorite part of DIY…DECOR! Baskets, hooks, a pillow, a small rug and voila! Pottery Barn is always my go to for statement pieces. Welcome to our MUDROOM!

LET’S TAKE ANOTHER LOOK AT THE BEFORE AND AFTER!

 

SHOPPING LIST

Stair “Catch All”

• Round Gold Mirror
• Walnut Finished Shelf
• Plant Stand
• Snake Plant

Mudroom

• Knotty Pine Panels
• Side Panels
• Trim
• Walnut Bench Top
• Bench Frame
• Paint
• Hooks
• Pillow
• Baskets
• Rug

Tools

• Miter Saw
• Nail Gun
• Drill
• Jig Pocket System
• Level
• Measuring Tape

As always, thank you for following along in our DIY life. We hope you found some inspiration in our MUDROOM. I’d love to see your comments. If you have any questions feel free to ask!.