Farmhouse Mudroom Renovation

There are those rooms in homes that are so well used, and so often filled to the brim with the stuff of life, that sometimes we can’t pause to appreciate them. In our home, the mudroom is one of those spaces.

You may remember way back when I started the Sugar Maple Farmhouse blog a year and a half ago, and when we first moved in here, we dove right into a couple renovations. Well, the mudroom was one of those spaces that we immediately changed.

The previous owners had used a room for their mudroom, which is now my office, and simply called the space between the backdoor and the kitchen the backdoor. It didn’t make a lot of sense to me. It seemed like a lot of wasted space was spent on spaces that led into the house but neither space was very functional. Both rooms had black tile floors and blank walls. No hooks, no mudroom lockers, no anything that would help me organize our loves.

We set out to make both spaces much more functional. We transformed the one space into my office, which I’ll show you at a later time. The other space, the “backdoor” room we started transforming into a useful space that made sense for our home.

New flooring makes a difference

The first thing we did in both rooms was to tear out the flooring. The floor was aback tile that didn’t go well with the house. It was big, it was glossy and it was dingy. We could never tell if it was clean or dirty and it made me a little crazy.

When we first started searching for a house to move into, we were enchanted with a house back in Illinois that had a brick floor in its entryway. It was completely beat up and falling apart, but it was charming.

We decided we wanted to add in a brick flooring to the farmhouse for a few reasons.

1. Kevin and I loved the charm of the floor in the Illinois house.
2. We wanted to add some character back to our farmhouse, which has been mostly stripped out over its 120-year life with renovation upon renovation. In fact, the farmhouse had been so updated that it really looked like a new construction home.

Instead of adding a real brick floor, we decided to go with a porcelain brick flooring. The problem with using real brick is that it needs to be sealed (more than once throughout its life for upkeep) and it had crevices where dirt would be stuck…probably forever. The idea of animal poop from our boots being constantly a part of the flooring surface didn’t appeal to me.

The brick porcelain gave us the look of brick without the maintenance. We used the Chicago tile from Virginia Tile and used a combination mix to have a more natural look.

The floors in this room (and my office) are my favorite in the whole house now. You can see a more detail post on the flooring with close-ups {HERE}.

The built-in mudroom lockers

The wall on the South side of the mudroom gave us the perfect place to put some lockers to store our coats, bags and other miscellaneous things that seems to randomly come in from the outside.

I worked on a design for the lockers that included a space for each of us. We couldn’t do a full wall of lockers because there was a window on the West side of the room that I didn’t want to remove or cover. Instead, I worked on a design that would have a locker for each of us, a small cabinet for recycling and umbrellas and a space for the broom and mop.

I wanted to make sure that there was space for the broom because I hate storing this in the pantry or anywhere else really. They get so dirty and I don’t like the idea of storing my cleaning supplies with my food.

I also know that we have a tendency to pile recycling up by the door or on a counter in the kitchen. In order to avoid that, I wanted to have a space for it in the mudroom. Designing the recycling area and making sure we didn’t eliminate the window actually ended up giving us a perfect little ledge for our keys. You can find the Welcome Home sign {HERE}.

In each locker space we added two hooks. They each had ample room and I wanted to give us as much space as possible. Also, this is Michigan and you might need your winter coat, raincoat and fall jacket all in the same day. The hooks are from Target and you can find them {HERE}.

Baskets make storage easy

The baskets below each individual locker hold multiple pairs of shoes. Even my husband can cram about four pairs of shoes into his basket. You can find those baskets similar to those {HERE}. It seems our exact ones are no longer available but these are very close and the correct size.

The baskets and cubbies above each locker store our hats, gloves, scarves and sometimes the kids’ lunch boxes. In designing this space it was important to me that it was really functional so planning for a spot to hold all these items was crucial. You can find those baskets {HERE}.

Even the cubbies above the broom cabinet with the white, woven baskets became the perfect spot for dog harnesses and dog seatbelts. You can find those {HERE}.

The top row of baskets will sometimes hold tools Kevin is using, random garden tools and other odds and ends. The center top basket now holds masks so we can grab them before we leave the house. Note: The boxes that say Utility on them are from Home Goods.

We decided to stop there and not take the cubbies up to the ceiling because the spacing didn’t work out correctly. Also, I’m just 5’2 so I already can’t reach the top level of shelves without standing on the Butcher block. I just wanted them to be tall enough where we couldn’t see dust bunnies hiding on top of the lockers.

The seating for the mudroom lockers

When it was time to decide on the seating for the locker area, I knew right away I wanted to go with Butcher block because it’s so durable. My kids can be really rough on things and I wanted to make sure whatever we used was able to withstand that and the test of time.

We had a Butcher Block counter in the desk area of the house (which we have now made into a coffee bar) and I loved how it looked. The two spaces are next to one another, so I loved the continuity of it all. Not only that but that area has a brick backsplash and I really believed it would all tie in nicely together.

This also worked out perfectly as a countertop above the recycling cabinet. Butcher Block is a material that might have been used throughout this house’s history so adding in that touch felt really special to me.

More functional space

Across from the lockers there is another wall where we added a vintage bench and a few hooks. It’s a great space for guests to put their belonging when they come to the house and we use it all year-round as a functional spot for egg and vegetable baskets. We really use the baskets in this space and I just love that they function not only as useful items for the farm, but also décor when they’re not being used.

Keeping it all straight

On the last wall in the mudroom we added a weekly calendar that included a few more hooks. (Can you ever really have enough hooks?) The calendar is a great space for us to keep track of weekly activities. It is also a good place to jot down the week’s planned dinners too.

This calendar will eventually be sold in our shop here!

All in all, we love this space now. We really took it from blank room to a functional and beautiful space for our family. What do you think of it? I’d love to hear your thoughts below! If you liked this post, please make sure to check out our Modern Farmhouse Coffee Table review and our Fall tablescape!

Thank you so much for visiting today, friends! I hope you’ll come back again soon to visit us at Sugar Maple Farmhouse.