A Mudroom Hideaway

6 Materials
$1500
3 Months
Advanced
On a whim, I decided I wanted to turn our utility room into a mudroom. It was for good reason, though. Whenever we have visitors, it never fails, they come to our side door. Our side door opens into our utility room. Our utility room houses the HVAC system, our massive hot water heater, our fuse box, cable box, my craft supplies, cat food/litter box...I think you get the point. (I cleaned up/out the room before I took the following photos.)
I should note that I have a front door which opens into a beautiful foyer, but nobody gets to see it because they all enter through our utility room.
I told Jamie of my plans for the mudroom and he eagerly accepted the challenge. (Well, not really. He never actually accepted the challenge, per se; it was more thrust upon him.) So, on Saturday, we made a trip to Lowe's to buy cabinets. We were planning on buying the cheap, unfinished cabinets until we found out how expensive even the "cheap" ones were. We made an executive decision while standing in the middle of Lowe's: we'd build the cabinet boxes and just order the doors. Once again, we were planning on buying cheap, sample doors but found out they were $70-80 each, plus, they were limited on sizes. >sigh< Now it looked like we were going to have to make the whole thing. Deflated,we went to the lumber department and stocked up on what we'd needed to build the cabinets AND doors.


Fast forward to that following Monday and I'm going through my messages on my blog. One message in particular piqued my curiosity. Kayla, the marketing manager at www.CabinetNow.com had sent me a message, asking if I'd like to guest post on their site. She went on to say she would love to explore ways to work together.


"Hmmm," I thought. "I wonder how we could work together?"
"Maybe...just maybe, we could use CabinetNow.com for our mudroom??"
And so a partnership was formed.


We built the cabinets.
We made two of these particular cabinets.
We made just one of these.


Then we hung them.
Next, we tried to cover the HVAC unit (read: eyesore) as best as we could.
Next, we built the benches.
I had found the perfect fabric for the cushions so I was ready to upholster the bench. Jamie said, "Not so fast. We need to get the beadboard up first."
Now we were ready for the cushions!
Next on my to-do list was try to think of a way to cover those unsightly fuse and cable box doors. I tried painting them. No luck. Since we were unable to attach beadboard paneling to them, I decided to go with the next best thing.
I covered them in beadboard wallpaper.
Since we're both short and we have 9ft ceilings, I had to come up with a way to be able to actually use our cabinets.


And it came to me! Library ladder. Hubby made the hardware and I made the ladder (with hubby's help).
We received the doors from www.cabinetnow.com and we were ecstatic! We were blown away by the craftmanship. Best part of all-the doors were built to fit our cabinet measurements; not the other way around. Here they are after I gave them a few coats of paint, added some hinges, and threw on a few knobs,
In most of the mudrooms you'll find, the storage space underneath the bench is accentuated with decorative crates or baskets. Not mine. Nope. No way. What I had to store in that space is not something I wanted on display. You see, our mudroom is actually a very small room: 12.5'x8.25', to be exact. Therefore, when we used the space for the bench and whatnot, we lost valuable space. Space that my cats need. Space my cats felt they're entitled to. (Hmph, cats.) I decided to use the area underneath the benches as their space. But to be able to hide everything "feline" I opted to make curtains. Kitty kurtains, if you will. (Phrase coined by my daughter.)
Finally, they're done.
Check out the wall art I made with the help of Simple Canvas Prints.


I have a ton more pics on my blog if you'd be interested to see how the whole room turned out. I'd love to hear what you think.
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Heather McKinney
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  • Alexa Alexa on May 18, 2019

    If you prefer they enter through the front, why is this door not locked when you are expecting guests? I'm not understanding the bottom line of why people come into your home in a way you wish they didn't. Room looks great.

  • Rene Draiss Rene Draiss on Jul 20, 2019

    I love this room, especially the floor. What kind of tile is that?

  • Trace Garvey Trace Garvey on May 18, 2020

    are the “kitty curtains” used to hide the litterbox ? Or just a cozy hiding place for their beds ?

    absolutely Lovelovelove the library ladder n storage solutions ... I love people that work Around their pets instead of making the pets adapt

    good job Momma!!

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  • Barbars Barbars on May 18, 2020

    Well done.

  • Larry Pettijohn Larry Pettijohn on May 19, 2020

    Great job overall, yet I do have some questions/observations


    1) 12.5'x8.25' isn't exactly a "very small room" for many people (my mother's Master/Owners Bedroom, the larger of the two is this size. Her Guest bedroom, kitchen and dining rooms are all 8 x 8. I hear that in places like New York even my mother's room sizes would be a luxury!


    2) Great job covering the Duct work & Mechanicals, and realize the whole thing couldn't be extended due to the upper cabinet, but why didn't you cover the electrical and conduit sticking out somehow


    3) Why didn't you enclose or hide the Water Heater (there are ways without violating new construction codes)? In many older homes and apes, the Water heater is inside small closets or even within Kitchen cabinets!) Painting it the same dark gray as the wall helps it some but left exposed like that it might be a good place for an unexpected splash of color...accentuate it...paint it fire engine red or something wild (or keeping with your color scheme, the green/teal of the "hello" pillow and bench cushions).


    It doesn't fit your situation as an entry way/mudroom, but can see this easily as a kids play space where the Water Heater is transformed into a Robot or Rocket Ship !


    4) Good job of minimizing the Breaker Boxes. I have seen others attach framed artwork to hide them even more and still maintain functional access

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