Quick post. Interesting news is that we have added a new season! We now have Winter, Spring, Summer, Monsoon, and Fall. Notice I did not say “good news” I said “interesting news”. It has forced us to take a break from all the things that need doing outside and brought us inside to wrap up some projects. Have you ever walked into a room and thought, “This is nice I think I could stay here forever”? On the flip side of that is when you walk into a room and you hurry through it as fast as you can because something just doesn’t feel right. That’s our mudroom.
Frankly I feel like any room whose name starts with “mud” has a PR problem. The remodel should probably start with an immediate rebranding. It’s a mudroom. A space meant to get you from the garage to the house. You put your shoes and coat there. You put groceries away in the freezers. Yes, I said freezers plural, don’t judge me.
Unlike what all the Pinterest pictures tell you, mudrooms need to be functional spaces. That being said it is part of the home. I do have to walk through that room dozens of times during the day. It is the first thing I see every time I come home and the last thing I see every time I leave home. Whether I want to admit it or not that sets the tone for how I feel. If I walk in and see mess and things that need to be done, I immediately struggle to relax. I think it’s time to figure this out.
It’s one of those spaces that I start working on and then stop. Then pick it up again and stop. Things get left in there to be dealt with later. Furniture that has no where else to live gets put in there till we figure it out. Cat boxes were moved in there so that I have a constant reminder to deal with them. Over the last few months everything was kind of coming along, painting had been done, stuff organized, it was okayish until last week. I had no intention on changing it because it was “ok”. Then we got a second freezer from the Habitat Restore. (Which if you have a restore near you I highly suggest you check them out. You help to support a good cause and you can find some really cool things at really reasonable prices.)
We planned to put a freezer on either side of the step into the house. There really isn’t another place for them to go. The step into the house was not centered on the doorway because when Bill built it we had cabinets on one side. I wanted the step to be wider than the doorway to give more space for feet to be. It was perfect, till we took the cabinets out. I thought, what if we moved the step over to center it better on the doorway?
Moving the step over 8″ should be easy.
Bill discovered that to move it we needed to take the top off and unscrew it from the wall. To take the top off we had to take the tile up. At this point I’m still not overly worried. I took the tiles up and saved them. He moved the step and this is where it took a turn. I had originally tiled around the step. There were no tiles under it. Menards no longer sells this tile. Houston we have a problem. That unpleasant screeching noise you just heard was the project stopping.
I retiled the floor using tile from the step, that problem was taken care of. We now did not have enough tile for the top of the step. The decision was made to just use the flooring we had put in the basement bedroom. We loved it, we had some, it will be fine. While the top was off, back when I was young and innocent and believed it could be easy, I had put the edge banding I bought to match the tile on. New life regret installed.
I know in a world of problems this is nothing. However, this made my brain hurt. Grey, blue, grey, red tones, green, brown, silver, dark grey, and then on to the reddish tile of the hallway/kitchen. Adding to the joy is the fact that the threshold going up into the hallway is just old and dirty no amount of cleaning has helped. That grout in the tiles also needs to be cleaned again and the blue stain on the base now matches nothing. Also all the cut edges of that vinyl plank looked pretty janky.
I had just purchased Varathane, Wood Repair Markers from Walmart for another project.
As I was using them on this other project I started thinking, what if I used them on that edge banding? The step edge went from looking like this,
To this in about 5 minutes. Not only did it fix the whole color match issue on the banding but I was able to blend in all the cut edges of the vinyl. I played with using two or three of the colors from the set and while not perfect it is done.
We also decided to go ahead and redo the entire floor, redo the paint on the trim, the door, that threshold, the ceiling and possibly the entire coat/shoe wall and the wall on the other side of the room.
Easy peasey.
Bill felt bad about saying that it might be better if we changed the trim color because he knew I had just finished it. Truth is I had some touch up to do since we moved things around and I’m okay with making changes for the better. It’s only paint and I’m liking the direction it’s going.
I am suspicious that he is trying to avoid the next part of this project that falls completely on him. He can’t start his part till I finish mine. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.
