A $500 Mudroom Makeover Packs in 4 Clever DIY Projects
Home upgrades often happen over time, in addition to the fact that one home project can often warrant another. For example, in Amanda Hixson’s (@well_shetried) home, she first upgraded her mudroom with a board-and-batten wall and hooks for hanging coats about two years ago. Then, after creating a bold, dramatic living room, she wanted her entryway to pack a similar design punch.
Before, the drop spot just off the living room was “a plain, bland pass through,” Amanda says. “All the walls were white.” She knew that “for a small budget and a little bit of elbow grease, [she] could make a BIG impact in the small mudroom.”
The bi-fold doors got a big upgrade.
Amanda started her One Room Challenge project by upgrading the bifold doors. She removed the old doors, covered them with hardboard, and added non-mortise hinges to the door frame (in addition to new trim) to convert the bifold doors into French doors. It was a major space-saver in the 40-square-foot space.
“This meant I could take advantage of the full width of the closet open rather than fighting with the doors and trim that previously hung over the opening,” Amanda explains.
She painted the doors (and the trim, and the rest of the room) Sherwin-Williams’ Svelte Sage. Amanda says the hardest part of the project was picking a paint color. “Initially I had planned to use a color-matched paint to the linen/tan color of the plants and bugs on my wallpaper,” she says. “I actually have a full gallon of paint in this color. However, when I put it on the wall it just wasn’t right! I ended up working my way through about a dozen paint cards — and another gallon of paint — before finding the perfect color. So yes, I bought three different colors of paint for this room!”
“Wallpaper had the biggest impact in this room.”
Although paint adds personality and the closet project was a storage superhero, “the wallpaper had the biggest impact in this room,” Amanda says. She used a patterned peel-and-stick from Peel & Paper.
“I was super nervous about wallpapering, but it really was much easier than I had anticipated!” she says — and it was her first time tackling peel-and-stick wallpaper, and she followed a lot of tutorial videos.
Amanda says if she were doing the project over again, she’d apply a wallpaper hack she’s learned since, which is that with dark-colored wallpaper, if you use a dark marker or paint to color the edges of the wallpaper, it can make everything look a bit more seamless. “Since the wallpaper is a dark color, if you look hard enough you can see the white edges of the paper,” she says.
“I had some issues in the corners since my corners are so far out of square, but I’m probably the only one who will ever notice!” she adds — and the same goes for the white edges, too!
DIY shelving and a bench give the mudroom (stylish) function.
Amanda also did woodworking projects in her $500 mudroom makeover: She added a bench along the right hand side of the space and a picture ledge above the board and batten. Two other smaller woodworking projects you might not notice in the space? Amanda added a rail on top of the picture ledge to keep her frames in place and made custom door pulls for her new sage green beauties.
She completed the room with decor and accessories: a rug, a floor-length mirror, and bug artwork. Her favorite part of the project is how much her sons ended up loving the room.
“I love that my boys love the room!,” she says. “I love how they point out the bugs on the wallpaper and then show their friends. It’s hard for me to pick an element that I like best or am most proud of because I think every part of the room is so important to bringing it all together.”
This project was completed for the Spring 2024 One Room Challenge, in partnership with Apartment Therapy. See even more of the One Room Challenge before and afters here.
Inspired? Submit your own project here.