Week Five | June 3 | Let There be Lights!
For the Spring 2021 One Room Challenge I am taking on our Mudroom. This is the workhorse of the house. It has to be filled with functional storage for all seasons, and ours is an unusual, dark room which needs more light, too. I’ll let you in on the inspiration board as well as plans for this welcoming room where organization and storage are critical — all infused with some Mid Modern style. Be sure to check in on all of the other ORC projects on the ORC blog here.
It has been a week! Last week was the last week of school, and since we were still online, all the last week festivities happened at home. It was more than a bit chaotic, frankly! But hooray! The school year is done, and we have moved on to summer fun (safe at home, still, but fun nonetheless)!
We also had a glorious, rainy weekend! It was perfect for working outside and inside while the rain fell. Outside, I finished planting out around the pool. I used 55 gallon barrels to create big planters for the pool area, and I am in love with how they turned out. I’ll have a tutorial for that soon. I wanted something really inexpensive but large, and these planters are perfect!
The rain barrels are full, too. I will also do a tutorial for how to make these — again from 55 gallon barrels which I found on the Facebook Marketplace for $15 each. They were so easy, and super inexpensive. And now we have water for gardening on the side of the house where there isn’t a hose bib. It makes watering over there so much simpler.
And the Kitchen Garden has expanded from four raised beds to a total of nine. I’m delighted to have the extra space, and I’m eagerly awaiting the emergence of the seedlings I’ve planted! We have more gravel to haul back for the paths between the beds, and then I will put together a whole update on the garden expansion.
Lastly, we put in two raised beds at the back of the yard for rhubarb! There is a local rhubarb farm that sells their plants each year. I got two each of two different varieties. It will be a few years before we can harvest them, but I’m thrilled to have rhubarb eventually. It’s one of my favorite tastes of summer!
Updates from the Gardens: tropicals around the pool, full rain barrels, expansions in the Kitchen Garden, and rhubarb!
Ok. Back to the One Room Challenge… and before we go on, I’m going to tell you something that’s really important to me. Unlike a lot of ORC participants, I don’t save it all for the big reveal. Some people want to keep their readers guessing, and that’s a choice. I actually hate that approach, though. I feel like it gives people unrealistic expectations for home renovations.
I also am not going to stage this room for the big reveal. Part of this project is a storage room. We don’t have a garage, attic, basement — this is it. And it would be disingenuous to only put the pretty stuff in, dress a few shelves with plants, and tell you it was done. That’s not real. I will make this room as beautiful as it can be, but you’ll also see a lot of toilet paper, mis-matched plastic bins, and the real stuff it takes to run a house because that’s what will always be in this room.
And now for an update on the progress…
Part One: The Storage Room
For those of you who are new: the Mudroom is an L-shaped space with two functions: the entryway and the storage room.
A quick sketch — not to scale - - of the plans for the Mid Century Mudroom.
The shelves are loaded and in place at last.
This week we worked on the paneling — it is nearly done! But we had to wait for the light fixtures to arrive before we can finish it. They came yesterday, and we put them up last night. I’m thrilled with how they look! Now I just need the right light bulbs to arrive!
Before: no style and very little light.
After: much better light with some MCM style to go with it! Better light bulbs are on the way!
The fixtures are from Illuminate Vintage — a small lighting company in Texas. Since the two wall sconces are the only fixtures in the room, I chose sconces with two bulbs instead of one — and doubled the light in the room. The difference is amazing, actually. I love the fixtures, and I can’t wait to see them with proper lightbulbs!
Shelves placed close together hold platters and trays. Holiday dishes are in dish packs to stay clean.
I also now have labels for each of the plastic bins in The Room of Requirement, as we call the Storage Room. Holly of Owl and Ember custom made these cute MCM-style labels. They are vinyl and are super-durable. I just need to spend an evening putting them all on this week — and taking off all of the old moving labels and tags, too. Some of these bins have really put on the miles over the years!
That’s about all that happened in the Storage Room this week.
Part Two: The Mudroom
Traditionally the day after school gets out Bambino and I do a huge clothes try-on for summer. So last week we did just that — pulling out all of his outgrown clothing and determining what he needs for summer. I also went through all of the winter gear in the Mudroom and tidied up the storage. Hopefully this week I’ll be able to get the top of the Mudroom storage finished so I can accessorize that area.
It’s so dark in here, I had to open the door to take a photo! This is the before — before tidying after a long winter!
As in the Room of Requirement, we have a new light fixture! It’s also from Illuminate Vintage — a Sputnik-style fixture. I love it! Originally, I wanted a true Sputnik fixture, but with the door swing, the bigger fixture I wanted just wouldn’t fit, so it had to be scaled back. This is a great compromise! But again, I need those light bulbs to come!
I also found some hooks which will be helpful for wet winter gear. I really wanted an Eames Hang-it-All from HermanMiller, but I just couldn’t afford the nearly $300 for a coat hook. I did find something similar at The Container Store, and at $30 it was in my budget. So those need to be hung this week, too.
But the big work will be on the new door for this room. It needs to be sanded and refinished. I think I’ll be painting the exterior side and oiling the interior, but we will see. It’s oak, and I don’t want it to be too yellow… I need to try a few things out before I decide. But we should have sunshine for the next few days, so it will be safe to work on it outside.
These doors are waiting outside for a few sunny days and a facelift!
The Design Priorities
So where are we on the project plan? Well, I’ve distilled this project down to three big design priorities:
Function and Storage: there’s a lot to fit into this strange little room without allowing it to look crammed. We’ll see if I can accomplish that!
Light and Lighting: this room has no windows, so we will be replacing the exterior door with something that will let in some natural light. We will also replace all of the light fixtures in the space, too.
Mid Century Style: it all has to work together, and the room needs some style, too. I’ll be using a combination of new and vintage items to give it a Mid Century vibe — I’m thinking Mid Modern Milan, personally.
This week was really about light — new light fixtures! And they are also bringing that MCM style that we have been missing! But after several loads of donations and tidying up, I also made some progress on the function and storage front. Things are coming along, but I’m thankful we have eight weeks this round instead of just six!
The design boar for the Mid Modern Mudroom — ideas and aspirations for this critical room in our home!
Clean and crisp. White and wood. The Mid-Modern Mudroom Makeover will bring functional design and organization into one of the hardest-working rooms of our home. With a combination of vintage pieces, easy-to-clean fabrics, and storage solutions for every season, the result will be a mudroom that nods to our home’s Atomic Ranch roots while making space for our 21st century family.
To Linda Weinstein, the creator of the One Room Challenge, I offer my most sincere thanks. Thank you for offering this kind of opportunity and for opening it up to anyone. And to Better Homes and Gardens, the ORC media sponsor: thank you for making this possible! And to all of the other ORC participants: I’ll be sure to stop by to admire your work! It is always fun to do this together!
Thanks for following along! I’m so excited for the next phase!
Cheers!
Angela
Thanks to my sponsors for this project! Interested in being a sponsor? Let me know!
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