Actually, Dan and I shun most projects that involve anything unsafe or too complicated for us at this point in life. But when the opportunity arose for us to have a mudroom by relocating our laundry room exactly one floor above its current location, we took a good hard think.
In the end, as we looked at the pile of coats and slushy boots in our living room, we decided that the project could be doable because we could do it in phases.
Phases: the key for home remodelers everywhere who have young children.
Remember our laundry room?
(Yes, the yummy Sour Lime flavored one.)
It has no flooring yet. It has storage. It has a washer and dryer.
But it has no floor. I mean it has a surface... planks of wood, but no real floor.
And you know what? It won't have a floor most likely until, well, until we get around to it. Springtime, I imagine.
Phasing, how I love thee.
So this weekend, we tackled the mudroom. Here's how it went down:
1. We had a contractor remove the washer and dryer from this previous laundry room. He patched it up, drywalled it and left it to dry. Here's a pic:
2. Before Dan and I attacked, we sat in the mudroom-to-be and imagined how we'd like to use it. I'd like to tell you that our ideas for the mudroom were the same.
But that would be lying.
Dan wants a mudroom that is neat and organized. (As do I.) To him, that means that each member of the family has one hat, one set of mittens and one scarf.
Naturally, I laughed.
We have an artsy daughter who *insists* on wearing different mittens every day. Plus, she loses some. And I'm a bit on the artsy side myself. I cannot be limited to one scarf. *Catastrophe.*
But when I told my idea of a mudroom to Dan (big hooks with tons of coats everywhere), he got that "ain't gonna happen" look on his face. Too messy.
Here's how we worked the space out:
(Drumroll, please): We took pieces of paper and wrote words on them.
I know, doesn't that totally sound juvenile? But we did. We wrote "coats" or "hats and mittens" on pieces of paper and taped them around the room where we thought they should go. We moved them here and there until we reached an agreement. And then we stapled them to the wall and had it notarized so that we couldn't change our mind. (Rolling eyes.)
We lived like that for a few days while we let the idea set in.
Hmmm... I think I could like this setup.
