mudroom progress

Unfortunately the bad weather prevented us from accomplishing too much last weekend- not to mention we were also still recovering from the 4th.

But here are a few quick updates..
The mudroom is almost done!  All that's left is caulking, sanding and painting.  Since we're expecting lots of fun visitors for the next couple of weeks I'm afraid it's unlikely I'll be posting the completion pictures anytime soon.  But here are some good shots from this past weekend..

This time I'll admit I didn't help much.  The mudroom was tight (and hot) so Ben got to work on facing the boxes while I started caulking other rooms in the house.

I didn't take pictures of the caulking- it's one of those things that's tedious and not much fun at all, but still has to be done!  For some reason we hadn't gotten around to doing the bathroom or a corner in the living room where the base molding was replaced, so I decided to suck it up and just finish it!


Henry was exhausted by the time Ben was done!

Some pictures of the almost final product..

The corner unit

The back unit

And one last update to share (one I'm particularly proud of).. we have the beginnings of yellow cherry tomatoes!

the mudroom.. a sneak peek

If only our calendar called for three day weekends every week..

We did absolutely no relaxing this fourth- we were way too busy tackling one of our major "to-dos"- the mudroom built-ins.  I think we're both totally exhausted and the work week has just begun!

When we first moved into our house there was a teeny-tiny underutilized space right off of the kitchen that we immediately started calling the mudroom.   Perhaps you remember it from this previous post. 

It does have a door that leads outside, though we never really use it to get in and out of the house.  Instead I had high hopes of turning it into a catch-all space- think outerwear storage, recycling center and dog treat mecca!  Before our kitchen was even installed I had drawn up a plan of what our mudroom should look like- though with all of the other house projects to complete I had no expectations about when we would actually start to tackle it.

But low and behold last weekend I convinced Ben to put aside the mantle work and move onto something bigger.. so we started to "pre-cut" all of the boards, thinking it would help speed up the installation process scheduled for the long weekend.

Pre-cut is in parenthesis simply because everything obviously had to be cut again before it was installed- about ten minutes into the job both Ben and I agreed it all would have been a lot easier if at least one of us was decent at math.  Thank goodness for construction calculators (is that what they're called?)

Anyway.. on Saturday Ben cleared out the mudroom and we started putting everything together.  Little side note: I'm very aware that in all of the pictures it looks like Ben does all of the work with me on the sidelines snapping pictures and drinking margaritas, but that definitely is not the case.  It may surprise those who know me but I actually have learned to operate a jigsaw and am very handy with a nail gun.

I had designed two pieces- one to run the entire length of the back wall and one to sit in the front left hand corner.  A little diagram to help..

Back Unit

So for both units we started with a base.. The ceiling height in the mudroom is 8'4" so we built up 4" to start.

We opted to use wainscoting for the back and literally just attached it to the wall- as we were putting it all up Ben mentioned there was no taking it down unless we wanted the walls to come down with it.

With the paneling up we started building the structure..

Like most old homes we had a few sloping floor/wall problems.  But nothing that couldn't be hidden with a little extra trim!

The wainscoting panel below the upper shelves is for lots of hooks- we desperately needed coat storage.

And the not quite finished shot.. we still have to add a 2" face to the outside edges of everything- then we'll caulk and I'm painting everything dark.  But what I'm most excited for is filling them up.  Here's a little taste of what's going inside them..

With the main piece done we only had the corner shelves left to do..

Corner Unit

Originally the mudroom had a small corner cabinet (pictured below).  

It felt like unusable space to us- I didn't think I'd really be able to fit anything in it, not to mention we were planning on gutting the room anyway to insulate the walls so we had no choice- it had to come down. But when the corner cabinet was removed we discovered there was actually no hardwood installed underneath it- it truly was built into the room.


We had planned on building in that corner anyway, so it wasn't a big deal to "mask" the lack of flooring.  This time around while we opted to go triangular again we decided to do full height open shelves instead.  

Because the floor had to be built up before we even installed the base there was a little bit of an extra step..

We installed the wainscoting again..

And started placing shelves where we wanted them..

Again we still have to install the face, but it's still a huge improvement over what was there..

It felt like as soon as we were done the weekend was over!  

We still have to finish up the window and door casings- maybe we'll get to it this week.  I'm hoping next weekend we'll face everything, caulk and then I can get painting!

the mudroom

Last weekend I was lucky enough to be able to take off knowing that work was still being accomplished on the house, even in my time away. Ben had the entire weekend to himself, so he invited his parents up north to help- meaning they had a fun, "working" visit and I got a much needed insulating and sheetrocking break!

Now because I wasn't present during the gutting of the existing walls, insulating and sheetrocking I unfortunately cannot offer much dialogue, but luckily my mother-in-law was able to document the process along the way.

Gutting the Walls
Because the mudroom can be treated as an extension of the kitchen we felt it was important to re-do the walls out there like we had in the kitchen. Simply put, the sheetrock was brittle and begged to be replaced.
After gutting the entire space Ben and his dad discovered that the existing ceiling had been dropped- similar to the bathroom ceiling (I posted about that here). The mudroom appears to have been an addition and unfortunately the way it was constructed would not allow them to raise the ceiling at all.

Insulating
As was expected, no insulation was found in the walls or ceiling. The truth is that small space is often times colder in temperature than it is outside- having found many frozen diet coke bottles out there in recent months pretty much convinced us that the walls were absolutely hollow.

Because we're planning on creating a multi-functional space- think outerwear, cleaning supplies and random groceries, it was important to go crazy with the insulation. Because there isn't a heating supply out there the smallest amount of cold air that seeps in- the better.

Sheetrocking
While not much explanation is needed I would like to add that Ben has absolutely perfected his skill. If anyone out there needs a sheetrocker I would absolutely volunteer his skills- if he didn't despise doing it at this point.. I can't imagine why.
I do have to mention that while the guys were busy working in the mudroom my mother-in-law was hardly lounging. I left the house in a rush so she was left not only to clear out the stone debris from the living room but she had to move everything out of the mudroom before any work began- the mudroom had been serving as an extra closet, so there was plenty to take care of. Anyway, she made it very easy for me- I came home from a weekend away with a clean house (she had to clean the floors 3 times!) and a home cooked meal.. everything was greatly appreciated!