And Then There Was A Mudroom

When we bought our house, the back porch was this concrete slab with a wooden railing. Here, our home inspector is standing on it.

We didn't initially expect it, but the back door became our main entrance to the house. The door enters into the kitchen, which means that dirty feet and coats had no place to live and I began to dream of a mudroom.

I mentioned this idea to Uncle Leonard, home renovator extraordinaire, about a year ago. He called in July and said "I'm thinking about coming up to work on the mudroom for Alex's birthday." Who was I to refuse help to make a renovation dream come true?

So it was that in the hottest month of the summer, mere days before a Japanese exchange student arrived, that Alex and Leonard put up some walls. "How many windows do you want?" Len wanted to know. "A wall of them?" I answered and the next day they were installed. Sometimes even I am amazed at how our crazy life rolls along.

Our exchange student Yukari arrived in time to see the roof installed, one day before a big birthday gathering for Alex. She took the noise and construction dust in stride and even climbed up to the roof, seen in the picture above at right.

Finally in early August, the mudroom got a door, another window and a third side. It was a real room, the first wood-framed structure Alex had a hand in building. And that's when construction halted. The mudroom was functional so we started filling it with 'stuff' - shoes and boots, coats, seeds, harvested vegetables and more. I dried herbs and peppers on the windows.

The remaining finish work inside will happen....someday... I envision drywall behind the coats and on the roof, an updated light fixture, and bead board below the windows. We'll build or buy shelves for storage along the window wall.

In the meantime, we love having an overhang when we're unlocking the door. Now that it's cooler, we can use the mudroom as semi-cellar storage. The room also creates a valuable air pocket that makes our home more energy efficient.

Thanks, Uncle Len a.k.a. Krash, for jumpstarting the mudroom!