Salvaged Mudroom Design

The entryway in this home was becoming a real problem for the family. Used as a storage area for bicycles, they wanted to convert it into a useful attractive mudroom. See how a salvaged design helps keep the clutter under control in this DIY Network video:

The key to a mudroom is having easy access storage, so the design was narrowed down by having a lift-up bench while adding old wainscoting.

Beautiful Victorian door trim was chosen for the wainscoting. Because it was made from two different species of wood, it had to be sanded down and painted, along with the salvaged dimensional lumber that formed the cap rail for the top of the wainscoting. That went on first, nailed securely into the joists in the wall. The wainscoting was cut to size, applied to the wall using wood adhesive, and then nailed to the cap rail at the top and the baseboard at the bottom. To include the power outlet, a hole was cut with the jigsaw. Caulking was applied to fill the seams. The vintage iron hooks, which came from an old New Hampshire dairy barn, were mounted directly on the caprail. A vintage toolbox serves as the bench.

Now this once-cluttered entryway is now a beautiful and useful mudroom.