Our New Mudroom! Which I Forbid Mud To Ever Enter

Hello beautiful people! 

I hope you are all having the BEST July and soaking up as much fantastic Summer fun as humanly possible. We were able to take a long week to vacation with both of our families this year and had an absolute blast. 💜But now that we're back, things have been moving around the house and we are getting down to business!

That's why I'm so excited to share with you today our completed Mudroom!!! We worked on this space for approximately two months, and the transformation was 100% worth it. The function and layout work so much better for our lifestyle and the amount of storage has tripled. 

So this is what we started with when we first moved in. Nothing to brag about - a cute-sized room - but our shoes piled up, there was nowhere to put anything extra, we didn't have enough hooks for our coats, and it brought me NO joy walking in every day. 

To really utilize the space we decided to create a whole built-in moment. I knew from the beginning I wanted lots of shoe cubbies, lots of hooks, a bench, and a large shelf on top to put decorative baskets for even more storage. As we started to build things out, we decided to add four additional shelves to the right as well. 

Oh, and it was going to be a KILLER color. 

This killer color is Alexandrite by Sherwin Williams. It was the March 2021 color of the month and as soon as I saw it I fell in love. Bold colors are the best. If you're timid about adding them to your home, smaller spaces like mudrooms, bathrooms, pantries, or closets are great places to dip your toes into the paint! 

With this room I also made the call to paint the ceiling. I wanted to give the sense of "coziness", have color completely surround you when you entered and bring it's energy over your entire being. That, and painting the ceiling is a whole mood. A mood I am here for! 

I also knew it was the right call when we hung the light. Something just wasn't doing it for me when I saw green walls, a white ceiling, and a blue chandelier. One of those elements had to give, and it was NOT going to be my new light fixture. Can we just take a moment to appreciate her??? She's glorious. And an absolute STEAL since a reverse image search led me to discover her OG price was over $450, and I snagged her for $60. Eric had to do a little mechanical magic to make her compatible with the ceiling height, but man was it worth it. 

With the light hung, the painting complete, and the bench assembled, it was finally time for accessories! I headed to At Home one evening and found these baskets (brown / white) which fit great along the top. The rug is from Overstock, and the shelf baskets and hooks are both from Amazon. 

Things are looking pretty good right!? Could it get any better? 

You betcha because there is still TRIM to be had! And if you whip around to the back wall, we did a little self-assembly and used two of these IKEA cabinets to create storage for all of our cleaning supplies. It's narrow depth was perfect for against the wall, and of course I couldn't leave well enough alone, and had to add my favorite hardware. 

The rest of the decor came together via DIY art and pieces we've had for years. As I was laying things out, I contemplated trying to move the Dyson, but ended up just incorporating it into the gallery wall design. I think it works! 

The black basket tags were the last thing I picked up before delcaring the room complete. There's just something about "slapping a label on it" that gives that feeling of satisfaction and done-ness like nothing else, you know? 

The fact that our house even has a mudroom is such a blessing. We went from our first place (that didn't have any sort of "landing" space at all) to a full size room right off the garage (which we ALSO didn't have before). There's a place for our shoes, a place for our stuff, a mirror to check yourself out, and hooks on hooks on hooks! Top it all off with it's brand new look and you have here one happy lady. 😊

What would some "must haves" be in your mudroom? Have you ever painted your ceilings? Do you have somewhere just begging to be a bold color? Share your thoughts below! 

Check out all of our home improvements, by visiting the OUR NEST page.

Light It Up! Creating Stylish Lighting On The Cheap

Happy first few weeks of Summer friends!  

We've been spending our time enjoying the sunshine, our backyard swingset, exploring the local parks, and having lots of "water days'. So far, so good. 

Lucky for us, long days of playing outside mean early bedtime for the kiddos. And as any parent knows, the most productive hours of the day typically happen after the sun has gone down and your "helpers" are away in dreamland. 

Among larger projects like updating the trim and finishing the mudroom makeover, I've been slowly working my way through the house addressing our light fixture situation. Our "fixuation" if you will. 

From the moment I saw the listing pictures, immediatly I thought to myself, "Well these have to go" to pretty much every single light in the house. Nothing about them brought me joy. Their color, their shape, their resemblance to a certain part of the female anatomy, nothing. In fact, right in the middle of move-in day, my mother-in-law accidently stood up under one of the chandeliers and busted the glass dome into a million pieces. Thank goodness she was unharmed, but in the middle of her endless appologies I finally had to hold my hands up and shout "I HATE ALL OF THESE LIGHTS! It is MORE than OK that you just broke one!"

But replacing all of your light fixtures can be a pricy task, so I didn't want to try and purchase everything at once. So the first item of business came up during Black Friday, we pulled the trigger on this brass chandelier from Wayfair. 

I love the crazy arms and how you can adjust the height and orientation of them. The brass coloring wasn't quite what I envisioned though, so one day a light bulb went off (ha) and I bought myself some Rub 'n Buff to add more brassy-ness to it's finish. 

It was after that moment that things really took off. Rub 'n Buff is SUCH an easy way to bring that warm antique gold to almost any surface. So instead of purchasing new lights for our kitchen, toy room, and hallway, I just buffed the current semi-flush ones we had, and honestly, I really love how they turned out! The old style that turned me off so much before, suddenly had my heart fluttering. 

Funny story, so remember how my MIL head-butted one light? Well her son took out another. Poor Eric was doing dishes one evening and crashed into the hanging light above the sink, shattering the (ugly) shade. Which gave me the perfect excuse to swap it for somethig more modern. 

And most recently, the many boob-lights that were upstairs in our hallway and closet are now brassy and classy! Those were just $23 flush lights from Costco, major save from the similar designs you'll find for $70 or more. 

If you follow me on Instagram, you'll for sure have seen the adventure of this beaded beauty. She's a Facebook Marketplace find for $60 and right now is on Overstock for over $480! She is sooooo pretty, and I was overjoyed when Eric figured out how to remove the chains and make her work for our mudroom. 

So that's where we are right now! A few purchases, but overall we really just utilized what we had by jazzing things up a bit. There's still our bathrooms and laundry room to do, as well as upgrading all bedrooms with ceiling fans. 

But you know, one bulb at a time.

To turn the light off on this topic, I'll leave you with some pretty satisfying before and afters. 

Have you ever used Rub 'n Buff? What other tips and tricks do you know for updating light fixtures? How many boob lights are in YOUR house? 

Check out all of our home improvements, by visiting the OUR NEST page.