Mudroom

Going on three years ago, we contracted out the construction of our house. We didn’t have a contractor which meant I hired different people to handle the tasks of building the house. Plumbers, electricians, cabinet makers…you get the idea. We saved between $20 and $25 per square foot by doing this part ourselves. But it wasn’t for the faint of heart and at the end I was so tired of dealing with it and ready to move in that there were some rooms in the house that I just ignored to save both time and money.

Case in point. The laundry room. It had no cabinets. No shelves. No where to store anything except on top of the washer and dryer. It quickly became a hot mess. I could have sworn I took a “before” picture of it but I can’t find it to save my life.  It was so bad the computer probably deleted it for me to save me the embarrassment of posting it out here.  You would have judged me.  It was that bad.

So after two and half years, I’ve had a lot of time to think about what I want in the laundry room both functionally and aesthetically.

Enter mudroom wall. I love mudrooms. I love the idea of having a home for the bookbags, jackets and purses.

So here goes a thousand pictures of me and my Mom building a little mudroom wall.

This is by far the most labor-intense project that I’ve personally tried to tackle without a professional. And it goes to show you that if you have one person that half-way knows what they’re doing (aka Mom) and one person that can fog a mirror (aka me) you can do about anything.

I started with stock cabinets from Lowes. I wasn’t super impressed with them and two of them were broken at the top when I took them out of the box. But we live 30 minutes from Lowes and you couldn’t see the broken pieces once it they were hung. So I rolled with it.

We started by drawing a level line on the wall so it would be easier to hang the cabinets. We started with the 36 inch center cabinet.

Hanging the first cabinet was the hardest part of the entire deal. It was HEAVY. Or it seemed heavy when we were trying to hold it over our shoulder and screw it to the wall with the other hand and making sure it stayed lined up with the level line on the wall.

The next two cabinets were much easier to hang once we had the middle cabinet to prop them against.

Then we got started building the seat. I got Lowes to cut the 16 inch board for the seat just to make my life a little easier and they cut a 12 inch board in 3 pieces to use for the legs. (I used a 12 inch board for the legs because I didn’t want them to go all the way back to the wall and force me to tear out the molding that was already in the room. I’m lazy like that.)

We screwed the legs to the board and painted it before we installed it. I mounted it to the wall using a support board all the way across the back and “L” brackets.

I really wanted bead board for the wall but I found this bead board wall paper on (affiliate) Amazon and it was so easy and quick to install.  I still have a lot of the roll left.  I’m not sure where I may use it next but I know I will!

I put the bead board wallpaper up before I trimmed out the bench seat so it wouldn’t matter if the bottom wasn’t perfect as the molding would cover it.  Here’s a close up of the bead board wallpaper after I installed the 1×4 and the hooks.

I added quarter round molding to hide the gaps between the walls and the bench. I wasn’t sure if the corners were square.  I used wooden decorative pieces for the corners so I wouldn’t have to cut the quarter-round at a 45 degree angle. **See lazy like that comment above.**

I won’t bore you with anymore mundane details about the process but leave a comment if you have a specific question that I didn’t cover.

Also, there’s no natural light in that room so the pictures don’t really do the finished product justice.

Anyway…without further adieu…the finished mudroom wall…

Update:  Here is a picture of the finished product after I added the polka dot wall and shelf over the washer and dryer!

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p.s. I’m linking up to I heart Naptime, Tatertots and Jello, Serenity Now, Home Stories A to Z, My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, It’s Overflowing, Sugar Bee Crafts, I Heart Organizing and AttaGirlSays.