Garage Transformation - The Mud Room

As promised, for the next few days I will post features from our Garage Transformation.  I am starting with one of my favorite parts and that is the mudroom - ironically the first thing that I built in the room.  Now, I have always been good at visualizing a design but usually I would leave it up to someone else to build it for me.  During this renovation my husband got very ill and as I am not a patient person, I was getting frustrated waiting for him to be able to build my inspirations.  So I figured if he can use a power tool then so can I.

I built all you see here (minus the baskets) from scratch, mostly using reclaimed wood.  Our main inspiration in this room is our back wall made entirely of old barn wood (which I will feature tomorrow) and we wanted to incorporate that look in all the finer touches in the room.  When I walked into the salvage yard and saw the colored barn wood pictured below - I knew I would have a project for it.  My husband thought I was crazy buying it with no purpose in mind but as I started to build the benches for this mudroom nothing could have been more perfect.  Putting them together was like doing a giant jigsaw puzzle.

Once I had the benches squared away, the rest just fell into place.  I used scraps of wood here and there where needed.

The bench tops were something I found by chance as well at a salvage yard.

For the name plates on the baskets I took old chalkboard frames I had found at Christmas Tree shops and used the power saw to cut in half.  I then glued them to scraps of wood and used a paint marker for the lettering.

The hardware used on the coat rack came from Anthropologie and probably cost more then all the wood used in this project!

This bench is hinged so that we could add some much needed storage space.

This was a fairly easy project once I had the materials that fit just perfect with the design in my mind.  I think it is important you find that one piece of inspiration and it makes it all the easier - for this the barn wood was for sure it for me.  Salvage yards are amazing for this as you never know what you may find to pique your interest!  Plus you can find the materials for a fraction of what you would pay at a commercialized store and of much better quality!!  Anyone looking for more detail about how this was accomplished, just drop me a note!