The Mudroom remodel has begun

Do you know what a 'mudroom' is? I grew up in a house with one. But I guess not all houses have them and therefore not everyone knows what one is. It is a room near an entry door that holds all your coats and most importantly all your winter clothes that are dripping wet from snow. In the one we had when I was growing up, my dad had even installed wire shelves just a few inches off the floor for us to put our wet boots on and the water and ice would drip off through the wire shelf and land on old cookie sheets that my mom kept under the shelves. Thereby avoiding wet carpet or floors from wet boots! What a great idea, eh?! I guess the reason not everyone knows what a mudroom is, is because they are most useful in snowy climates. I currently don't live in a state that gets snow 7 months a year anymore, but when we do get snow this mudroom sure will make it better!

We didn't have a mudroom in our house in Vegas, but we didn't have kids yet so it wasn't a big deal. When we built our house here, we built a pretty big house so there should be enough storage... but I'm one who feels you can never have enough storage... and as it turns out the closet area near the entry way is wwaaaaayyyy to small for a family of four. I guess I should point out that the original house plan called for a bigger closet/laundry area that could have served as a mudroom. But we had made some modifications to our plan and one of those was to add a second staircase. This staircase wound up taking up a lot of the space that was in that laundry/mudroom area, thus leaving us with no mudroom, and a really hard to use closet area. The closet has a rod in it that is 4 feet long but it runs front to back in the closet instead of left to right. Therefore, when I stand in there and try to get jackets in or out, I literally have to lean backwards against the wall balancing as I hang coats. Not to mention there is NO space for gloves/hats/scarves, so I have them in plastic bins on a shelf above that when not in use are very neat and tidy. But when its snow time and we have to access those bins, they are a pain in the rear and a real mess! So as you can see, it has been my wish for quite some time to have a real mudroom. This dream became a real option when we did our add-on several years ago, because when we added on, we added several new garage bays for my husband, which then gave us the option that we COULD convert half of our old single bay into a mudroom. Yippee... that time has come! In the picture above you see T standing in that single bay garage that will be converted into the mudroom.  We don't want to change the actual garage door on the front of the house because it seems whenever someone removes a garage door on a house you can always tell it used to be there and it just doesn't look good. So we are keeping the garage door and using that space (about half the original space) to house all the bikes and kids outdoor toys. We are then taking the other half, which is right next to the door that leads from the garages into the house as our mudroom. It will be the perfect place for it and I am so excited as work has begun this week! Following are some pictures detailing the plans and the bit of work that has already occurred. Now I will preface this with... this type of post might not interest everyone, but I love buildings and remodels and I completely enjoyed reading step by step status updates from my friend Min when they did some major renovations on their house. So for those of you, who like me, enjoy this stuff... enjoy reading. For those who don't enjoy it, you don't have to feel obligated to read it :)  P.S. if you do read it I hope u enjoy the comments I was able to put directly on the photos to try to explain them better.