Planning for a Mudroom

Remember this space at our old place?  We called it the mudroom.  It was the back entrance to the house.  That door went out onto the deck and pointed right down the stairs into the yard, which had a little path over to the gate at the driveway so that you could get to the garage.  We did a mini-renovation to the space in 2006 in order to make it the way you see it now.  A chair rail and wall paper that covered half the wall was removed.  Wall to wall carpet was torn up.  A bad tile job was pried off the floor.  Steve and his dad laid the slate tile floor, along with radiant heating underneath so that it was warm in the winter.  We had hardwood floor installed for the other half of the space, which is the office.

Oh, how we miss that space!!  While the new Tudor House is amazingly similar to our First House, with a nearly identical layout, the mudroom is MIA.  You see, it was an added later (by a previous owner) at the First House.  The part where the hardwood floor is used to be a porch.  The Tudor House does not have a door that goes into the back yard.  There is a front door and a side door, but no back door at all. It does have its own space that used to be a sun room, which is now the office.  It just hasn't had the addition, yet...

You see, we knew on the first day we saw the house that it HAD to have a mudroom (and back door) added.  See that picture over there?  That's me during our first walk through, pointing at the space where the mudroom should go.  When we had the minor debacle discovery that the central AC unit had died at our pre-closing walk through it was just another sign that the mudroom was meant to be.  How does a dead central air unit mean we should add a mudroom, you might ask.  Well, the unit was located behind that bush at the corner of the dining room, basically right where my thumb is pointing.  Key word being was.

So, we were given a credit to have the AC replaced at closing.  When we had the unit replaced later in the summer we also had it moved, over next to the side of the current office so that it would be out of the way when we added the mudroom in the spring.

Here is how the space looked at the end of the summer, ready for its makeover:

So, now it is time to start making the addition a reality.  We haven't ever put an addition on a house, though, so we are a little unsure of where to begin.  We are getting recommendations for architects and contractors from our real estate agent (who has a lot of experience with this, and is just awesome in general) and friends in the area, and just figuring out where to go from here.  We would like to bring the addition out to the bump at the corner of the dining room, flush with the current side wall of the office, having the roof line mimic the slope of the office roof, so that it feels like a continuation of the office just like the mudroom did at the First House.  We also hope to have slate tile with radiant heating for the floor, just like before.  One thing we learned is that we want the door to be centered on the wall, not crammed in the corner like it was at First House.  We need a little more space to get in the door. 

The bench is just waiting for its spot.  And we certainly still know where to get the hook racks for the walls!