It was a dark, very dingy room that was just kind of thrown together and neglected. I think it was actually a porch that was converted into two spaces, our laundry room and mudroom. The laundry room was actually finished out nicely, but the poor mudroom was just in shambles. Considering we almost always enter the house through the mudroom, it was driving us crazy to be greeted by old, nasty carpet, weirdly dark slate blue/grey walls that were peeling, and depending on the season - either freeeeezing or scorching hot temperatures (since it was so poorly insulated).
Thankfully, after two years of living in our house, we have finally come to a point where we are ready to renovate and make this space the beautiful room it deserves to be! So, I present to you, my design board for this soon-to-be-fresh space of ours:
Isn't it beautiful?!
Thanks to Pinterest (picture 1 and picture 2), I've had so much visual inspiration for what I wanted for this space. I craved an area that was fresh and light to walk in to -- as well as a functional and practical place that served as a holding tank for the mountain of shoes that we accumulate during the week as well as for our jackets, winter accessories, and other random things that come with being a family of four (+ a dog!).
I am a sucker for the bright and airy and ever since I watched my very first episode of Fixer Upper (Love me some Chip and Jo Jo!), I've been wanting to implement some shiplap into our home somewhere, anywhere,
Here's the (rough) floorplan to give you an idea of what we're working with:
The benches: Next up from the floor would be the bench(es). I wanted a place where the kids could sit down and either put on or take off their shoes. We came up with an L-shaped bench with half of it being closed off on the bottom and having an opening top for storage (think: hats, gloves, scarves, umbrellas, etc.) and the other half being open on the bottom to keep all of the shoes out of the way. So, I was thinking of making the bottom portion of the storage bench a white shiplap frame and then having the seats resemble the reclaimed wood pictured at the top.
The walls: I'm still not sure what I want to do about the walls. I would love to shiplap the whole room! Buuut, I think Nick would kill me after all of the hard work he has done on the dry wall in that room. So, we shall see what we come up with. For now, I'm definitely thinking to keep all of the walls a neutral white to keep the space feeling bright, since it is such a small room.
The doors: Months ago I painted our kitchen door that beautiful Robin's Egg blue color with spray paint from Home Depot. I absolutely fell in love with it and, to this day, I am still so happy when I walk into the kitchen and see it. I am not quite committed to painting the outside door any other color than white, so that'll probably stay a blank canvas until the room is mostly complete and I can gauge what color would suite it best.
The coat hooks: We have these hooks in our foyer and I think they are so classic looking. I am super excited about putting some at not only adult height, but kid height so that it's easier for Peyton, Rhett, and any future little ones to hang up their own jackets or backpacks.
The ceiling: First, and foremost, we've already purchased and hung this light fixture and I can't tell you just how beautiful it is! We tried it with an Edison bulb, but the light that it gave off was just too yellow. So, for now we just have a regular light bulb there. As far as the ceiling goes, if we don't end up decking the whole room out in shiplap (or even if we do!), I would LOVE to do a white bead-board ceiling.
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And there you have it. I can not wait to see this room reach completion! Hopefully finishing that will give us the gumption we need to get started on our kitchen. Or maybe to at least re-paint the rest of our 1st floor.. and by "we", I mean "Nick" -- Just don't tell him I said that ;)
xo,
Sara
