Kitchen reno - mudroom

After a lot of debate during the kitchen planning process, we came to the conclusion that keeping a mudroom space at the side door was the way to go.  And I'm so glad we did!  Here, you can see the before photos...small, but functional cabinets, beautiful peg coat rack, awesome light(bulb) on the side of the wall, and the pantry... all in the mudroom...

Before...

There was a decent amount of storage in the pantry, but having it around the corner from the kitchen was less than convenient.  So where the doors were is where we decided to put the new wall - adding 18" of space in the kitchen.

During...with the wall and pantry gone!

We ordered cabinets for the mudroom to match the kitchen.  We also went with one big, pantry/closet sized one to put Cady's food, towels, and other stuff that comes along with having a dog.

We needed to build the big cabinet up a bit so it would go up to the ceiling, and Steve our contractor suggested this - a shoe cubby!  So he built us a little box to throw flipflops, etc, and it's perfect.  We had paint matched to the cabinets so we could paint the shoebox to make the whole thing look custom.

We originally were just going to run the hardwood through the whole space, but after the messy, snowy winter we had last year, I made a last minute decision to go with tile.  We found these darker, slate looking tiles at Lowes and it only too a box and 1/2 to do the whole mudroom.

We love the floors!  They look so good.  Once everything was finished, it was time to get some hooks up...which proved to be a little more difficult than we'd hoped.  Instead of putting them straight into the drywall, we had to add a board and drilled them into that.

Once painted to match the wall color, you can't even see it!

The mudroom is finished!  We would like to find a new rug, but for now - this one will do just fine.  It's the perfect spot for Cady, muddy boots, coats and bags, and will lots of use.  I'm so glad we decided to keep it separate from the rest of the kitchen.

And it's great to come home to a nice, functional space, especially when you're greeted by this crazy one!