My Accidental Project

It's officially winter here in Minnesota, and that means it's time for the coats, boots, snow pants, hats, mittens, etc... And then a few more coats.  In Minnesota, there are lots of coats.

We were thrilled that the new house came with a pretty big closet that we named the Mud Room even though it's really just a big closet.  I've always wanted to have a Mud Room, and aint' no one gonna hold me down. (Uh oh, I got to keep on movin'.)

The problem is it's kind of a hot mess.

I keep my shoe rack down here so that I'm not always running up 4 flights of steps to get the shoes I need. But the Hubs told me, "Your shoes are becoming a problem, and I'm going to have to solve it."  For those of you that remember his propensity to trash stuff, you know this is a bad sign.

On this side we try to hang our most frequently used jackets, but it doesn't really get used, because, well, it just takes a long time to hang things up on a hanger.  So we don't.

And on this other side I hang extra bags and shopping totes.  Stop judging me.

So I started with a simple plan.  I was going to remove the closet rod on the left hand side of the room, and the small set of hooks on the right, and replace them both with a series of hooks so that it would work better for how we live.

I didn't want to just stick a bunch of hooks in the wall, so I used this inspiration from JennaSue.  Isn't it great?

I had an extra 1x4 in the garage, thanks to my sweet scrap pile, so I cut it into two 4' lengths.

Ignore the white floor boards in the back.  More on that project soon.

They were a little rough, so I sanded them down to make the tops and sides perfectly smooth.

 And then attached my board to the wall with 2" screws at the studs.

 That's where things got out of hand.  At first I taped it up and rubbed a little stain on it, but I immediately regretted my decision.  Why would I add any more golden pecan to this house?

So before I knew it, I removed everything from the room.

The pile that was my Mud Room.  It can hold a lot of stuff!

I pulled out a bucket of white trim paint left over from Bath Crashers, and slapped on the first coat. 

Gettin' ready to paint.

But once my new wood pieces were painted a crisp white, the cubby bench and shoe rack looked ridiculous.   So I painted those too.  And then I couldn't help but be annoyed by the holes and scrapes in all the walls.  So I patched them before I realized we didn't have a left over bucket of this color paint.  Which means I am going to have to paint the whole room.  Oops.

It was at around this time the Hubs came home.

J- "Erin- what the hell is going on in the front hallway?"
E- "Oh, that?  I'm sort of painting the Mud Room.
J- "Sort of painting it?
E- "Well, I am painting it.  But I didn't mean to."
J- "Seriously? Only you could 'accidentally' paint a room."



I'm waiting on it to dry now, so I'll fill you in on the details tomorrow.  And just in case you're wondering, no, I am not proud that of the fact that of all the projects I could choose, I chose to paint the room that no body ever sees.  But sometimes you don't choose home improvement projects, they choose you.  (I can literally hear the Hubs rolling his eyes at me as he reads this.  Love you babe!)