Emerging from hibernation

I smelled fresh cut grass yesterday on a short walk outside, which must mean that it's time to wake up the blog and all the house/yard projects. I wish I could say that we spent the winter painting or re-arranging or decorating or doing anything besides sitting on our rears, but alas. We needed a nice long break from home improvement.

But, we're back! And after hopping around all winter trying to get boots on and off, we decided to put some time and effort into cabinetry for the mudroom. I think we needed a break from Ikea, too, because going back after a looooong absence wasn't as painful as we were expecting. Their showroom had a nice butler's pantry/mud room set up, using a new dimension of wall cabinetry (18"x30") as base cabinets with a counter on top for a nice bench surface. Given that this is a relatively private room in the house -- we're pretty much the only ones who ever see or use it -- a less expensive, but still totally functional solution appealed to us.


We need to thank our friend Larry for coming over and helping us maneuver heavy flat-pack boxes in and around the yard. (Tai cracked a couple of ribs in a ski accident a few weeks ago, so moving some of the bigger stuff was pretty painful for him.) Nice-ish weather meant an expanded work area.

And, of course, I have no "before" pictures. Just imagine an enormous pile of dirty shoes, framed with a random tall cabinet (reject from the kitchen), our stash of grocery bags, and a ski boot or four. Our dimensions didn't exactly match Ikea's, so Tai hacked together an end piece that fits quite nicely.

 

 Wouldn't be a project without a little pain, or in this case, a drywall gouge on an otherwise mint wall.

 

We are very pleased with the look. We had debated going with a more expensive countertop or door option, but this seems to fit our house just perfectly and actually looks like the much more expensive white doors we passed on.

(And of course those are my shoes still on the floor. Tai hasn't trained me yet.)
And if we can ever get the Flor website to cooperate, we may have some rugs to show you in the next week or so...