Mudroom and Front Hall: Before and After

When we designed our house, we knew we wanted a mudroom between the garage and the main living area. This would give us a place to drop all our coats and boots, and have the mess contained within a defined area. If you remember from our house plans, we built a raised bungalow with a split entrance that includes the front hall and mudroom. I’m going to show you some front hall and mudroom before and after pictures, and drag you down my memory lane!

Before & Progress Pictures

So let’s look at some of the pictures from earlier this summer.  By the end of May we had the foundation completed, and started working on the framing. The pictures below were taken about five weeks into the build. At this point we had the sub-floor finished for the front entry and mudroom. I remember bringing the kids here that day and having a little dance party on the floor of the mudroom. It was quite exciting to feel where the rooms would be.

Framing

Then after we finished the sub-floor there was the first floor framing, and then the trusses and roof. Then by July our contractors finished all the the interior framing.

Drywall

In August we had contractors in to work on plumbing, electrical and HVAC. By the end of August we were ready for drywall. In September we rented a paint sprayer and I primed the whole house and painted all the ceilings with it. I didn’t get around to painting the wall color in the front hall and mudroom until late October.

Laundry

The day we got the washer and dryer installed and working was a great day. This was in September, a couple weeks after living in the trailers behind the house. At that time we were “camping” with four little kids. I would do several of laundry at my in-laws every couple of days just to stay on top of the piles of laundry that happens when you have a lot of little kids. Not that it was horrible, but it was just a little inconvenient. To have the capability of doing laundry in our own house again was quite exciting.

We also had the door installed between the mudroom and the garage. Every little thing that was done made it feel more and more like it was becoming a livable house.

Then the mudroom and front entry stayed like this for quite awhile as we worked on other more important areas of the house. It wasn’t until December that we were crazily working to get everything done. There were two deadlines that we had to meet. We wanted to finish everything in order to get our occupancy permit, and we also had to finish everything in order to consolidate our loans and get a mortgage from the bank. Plus, my maternity leave was coming to an end, and that meant that I wouldn’t have as much time to do work on the house. So the whole week before Christmas we were working on tiling the front hall and mudroom as well as working on the en-suite bathroom. While everyone else spent quality time with their family on Christmas eve, Tony and I were taking shifts tiling.

After Pictures of the Front Hall and Mudroom

We did manage to get everything major done before our deadlines. The major things that we finished in December included included tiling the floor, grouting, and installing the trim and casing. We haven’t painted the trim or doors yet, but I’m sure we’ll get to that someday. This is the view looking down from the living room into the front hall.

Front Hall

We got the tile from Ceratec in Ottawa. It’s 13″ square porcelain tile that has a sort of natural stone look. It’s a very dark grey with some random blobs of varying greys. It almost looks like it has patches of dirt, which is perfect because I’m hoping it will hide the actual dirt that will be there most of the time. We chose a very dark grey grout to match the tile.

A good tip when tiling is to always open several boxes and randomly use tiles from each box, as well as rotate them in different directions. I started tiling by only using tiles from one box, and I didn’t realize that they were all the same pattern until after I had laid them all in the same direction. I’m sure no one else will notice, but it bothers me slightly when I think about it. I’m sure I’ll get over it.

Mudroom

From the front hall we have a pocket door that leads into the mudroom. We wanted a pocket door because most of the time the door will be open, and a swing door would have gotten in the way. But when we have company, it’s nice to close that area off and pretend that it’s all neat and tidy. The third picture below is looking back into the front hall where you can catch a glimpse of our stairs.

In the mudroom we put up a lot of hooks for coats and snowpants and backpacks. Someday we hope to make built-ins with a bench and cubbies. For now this system is working well and the kids are learning to put away their stuff in the right spot.

The trim throughout the house is from Mountain Moulding and is the urban suite. As with the rest of the house, we still need to paint all the trim and doors. I can’t quite bring myself to start on that task yet.

The paint colour I used for both these rooms is called Intense White by Benjamin Moore, which we also used as the main wall color throughout the house.

This is the window in the mudroom. We changed the size of the window at the last minute, making it taller and adding the transom to match the one in the front door. I am so glad we did this because it brings in so much light to the front of the house.

And that’s all I have to say! I hope you enjoyed looking through all our front hall and mudroom before and after pictures as much as I did. I know it was only less than a year ago that we started building our house, but these pictures bring back so many memories and make me feel slightly nostalgic.

This post is linked up over at A Fresh Start On A Budget