Preservation Acres: Mudroom

Well, we have begun our second week at the new farm, and while there will be MANY stories to tell and pictures to share, I am not entirely done telling the story of Preservation Acres and all we did there on this blog. So today, I am posting about our mudroom transformation.

When we moved to PA in the fall of 2014, this room – and the adjoining bedroom, was one long space. We suspect it was a carport that had been closed in at some point in the 80’s, as one wall was made clad in exterior siding, while the other walls had old-school paneling. You can see the two types of paneling below in the photo on the far right. Also, the floor was just a solid concrete slap. Similar to what you might park a car on…

When we decided to split this space into two, the first thing that Nathan did was install a new overhead light and fan (so he could see) in the bedroom, and then, with the boys help, he built the dividing wall, which included space for a closet in the bedroom; this is what created the nook that the gray bench would eventually go into. (You can see the beautiful floor in these pics.)

Meanwhile, I was creating inspiration boards for the two rooms. This was what I came up with for the mudroom. I wanted it to fit Preservation Acres’s colorful but light and airy “state fair meets schoolhouse” vibe. Of course, as always, I was working on a thrift store budget, so I scoured FB Marketplace, local flea markets, and online sales to find all the bits and pieces.

One of my first finds was these lockers. I think I paid $50 dollars for them, plus several cans of spray paint. They were a little roughed up, but for a mudroom, I thought they were perfect.

I planned to eventually add leather pulls to the doors (a la my inspiration pic), but that never happened. And while the lockers sadly did not make the trip to New Jersey, they did find a wonderful home in another mudroom, where maybe they can still get some new pulls.

My original plan was to lay brick floors here, but do you know how expensive brick is? So instead, we went with a tile (that we got a great deal on from Floor & Decor) in about the same shape and laid it in a running bond pattern- spacing them out just like a brick floor would be and giving them a little extra patina by wiping some of the grout over the top.

The boot racks came from Etsy unfinished and painted them green. They didn’t hold up as well as I would have liked, so if we do this again in our new mudroom, I will go with a different maker.

The light fixtures came from Amazon and were extremely well priced, – we liked them so much we put them in the hallway upstairs too. They were white to begin with, but my unofficial god-daughter Phoebe painted them a high-gloss red for me and saved me beaucoup pennies.

Half of the walls (and the beadboard ceiling) we painted Country White from Wal-Mart (my go-to white for almost everything). The rest, we paper with removable wallpaper in a large gray and white buffalo check. I think I got it from Home Depot online. (I still love that wallpaper and brought a leftover roll with me to NG, where I think it might find a home over our fireplace in the living room…)

The bench was another FB Marketplace finds; the shelves were made from a leftover piece of flooring and some unfinished brackets I painted to match the light fixtures. And the farm pillow was a sweet gift from one of my oldest blog friends, Sarah.

I just love how this little space turned out. It was the Little Mudroom that Could.

And you will eventually (hopefully) see several smaller pieces from this room in the cabin here at the new farm, where most of my red and camp-like items go to live. And yes, I am already keeping my eyes open for some new lockers over there ;).

Thank you dear mudroom for giving us a lovely place to store our muddy boots, egg baskets, and ALL the gloves. You held it all together for us, no matter how busy or messy we were.

xo