Our Scary Mudroom {The Before-Between}

There are some things I haven’t shared with you. The ugly, how do you live like that, kind of things. Today that changes. Prepare yourself.

I don’t fully know the answer of how we have lived with this condemned, scary entry for so long… Perhaps it has something do with living in a reno, and having so many projects to tackle, that you kind of turn a blind eye. While Matt and I are go getters, we are also procrastinators at the same time. (our dryer has been broken for a month)

I have been majorly turning a blind eye to our entry/mud room. I shutter at what others see when they walk in, I saw it once, but just started keeping my head down. It’s been on my mental to do list for the New Year, and yesterday I couldn’t take it anymore! I took a hammer to it, and demo’d the rest of that room while fin was napping.

It was a disaster.

There are 3 things I really don’t enjoy when it comes to DIY.

1.The Demo 2.The Clean Up 3. The Prep

I have to force myself through these stages. Yesterday I chanted “I think I can, I think I can” all in the hope of finally saying goodbye to that old box and dirt ridden siding. While the tar paper was a nice touch, it too would have to go.

I didn’t clean up for you guys. When I saw this picture I wondered why there are so many shoes at our back door.

Stage one was to demo the rest of the old siding and the decrepit trim.

Matt added this little room on when we were building the addition. It used to be a deck… thus the window into our kitchen. The window will eventually be closed in, and the original door way will be widened, so I didn’t want to put a ton of energy into the space, but it needed to be cleaned up and less of an eyesore. This past summer we did a lot of work to the outside of this entry. We finished the siding, built and stained a deck, and added lighting. You can see the work we did here.

It was a victory moment to see this corner cleared out! Next came sanding the weird dirt that was all over the shiplap, off. Then I vacuumed and wiped all the boards with a wet rag. It was a very productive toddler nap time.

Things started to feel much better. While these boards have some major water stains, I didn’t have any primer, but I had motivation… so I used some remnant white ceiling paint I had on hand. A girls gotta do what a girls gotta do! Think of this as “free phase 1 fix ups”

This is probably one of the laziest paint jobs ever… I didn’t even brush in the grooves. I mean it’s one coat of ceiling paint, but it is honestly 1,000 times better than it was!

I also decided to experiment with painting the window black… and I think I like it. It will eventually come out, so I figured it was a safe place to get crazy 😉

Matt found this outdoor pendant lantern on clearance last year for about $15! Isn’t it cute?

That door jamb and 2×4 are coming out, which will widen our entry by about 6 inches- don’t worry, there’s another stud behind the shiplap. eventually we may widen/heighten this through way, but there aren’t any decisions being made yet. I can’t wait to get this room put back together and then start working on the built ins on the wall to the left of the door. Maybe I’ll even add trim…. maybe.

With love and tenderness,

The Girl who once painted her entire bedroom 3 coats of white with a mini-roller.

-Miss Ash