The muddy mudroom redo and reveal has been over a year in the making. Here is how I overcame a mudroom fail, making our mudroom work for us.
As I sat down to write this post, I started counting the number of times the mudroom walls have been painted (4); the number of times the coat hooks have been changed (17); and then I started thinking about that epic fail of a floor project when, at the time, I thought was going to be amazing. One epic fail.
It was two summers ago when I decided to paint the mudroom floor a black and white stripe, and apply a marine varnish over top. You can read all about that fiasco right here. With every intention of making the floor exactly how I had planned, fixing the paint and the varnish, I ended up just leaving that sad floor. Truth is, I was just so over that project that I needed to walk away and spend some time coming up with another flooring solution. Winter came and went. Spring bloomed and copious amounts of mud was stomped in, leaving the white stripes a rather distasteful color. No amount of Mr. Clean could clean the floor.
I started entertaining tile, like a slate tile for the mudroom. I went around to a few tile stores and found some serious possibilities. But then I took a stiff look around. There were boxes and boxes of tile on the back porch that were reserved for a couple years, for the den (that reveal coming to you next week). We had several boxes of bathroom tile in our upstairs hallway waiting to be installed in our master bathroom (that reveal coming to you in two weeks!). The more I thought about it, the more I didn’t want to buy tile and find a place for it to sit for Lord knows how long.
I had gotten to the point where I had reached my threshold. I was so over the ugliness of the mudroom and how dirty the floor always looked that I needed this debacle to be fixed immediately. Final answer. So I turned to linoleum. This linoleum peel and stick tiles.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Even nowadays, linoleum gets a bad rap. But the quality of the stuff has improved greatly over the years, and honestly, is a great solution to a mudroom floor. Living in the northeast and on a small farm with two fluffy dogs and the occasional sick chicken that makes their way inside to the “Brooke’s Chicken Hospital” to be brought back to good health, our mudroom takes a beating. Yes, I would love one of those mudrooms that I see in magazines that have cubbies, and radiant heat flooring and pretty baskets that hold things. But ours is not.
Our mudroom gets walked all over. Total pun intended. Between garden shoes and boots, we’re constantly bringing in mud and crunchy leaves. And if we’re not bringing in the leaves, they’re coming in on our dog’s tails. Shoes get taken off and tossed, coats get hung on hooks (if I’m lucky), and stuff just gets dumped in our mudroom. I’ve learned I need to pick my battles.
Bottom line, our mudroom is our hardest working room that gets very little fanfare. It’s a mudroom, for crying out loud. But, it works for us, and the linoleum floor was installed in a couple hours. It’s easy to sweep, hides dirt, kinda, and mops clean in no time.
After over a year of hemming and hawing, I’m so pleased with the linoleum decision. Painting over the green walls with a more calmer tan turned to be the icing on the cake. I guess in this case, the forth time is the charm.
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