If you have been following along with the Fischer Flip space reveals, you may have already seen some glimpses into this fabulous space. I shared the initial design plans for the mudroom here. Much of the final design remained as planned, as you will see! I really feel that this space will be a major selling point for this flip house. Not only is it the biggest mudroom I’ve ever seen, it’s just so classically beautiful with the marble-look gray and white checkered floors, and the shaker peg rail storage.
But, let’s first look at some befores, for some satisfaction…
This space was graced with some brown linoleum floors and small dark wood trim. Other than that (and a bunch of bi-pass doors that did not slide properly) this room was a blank slate. It connected the family room to the basement, garage, and half bath, so this is a very important thoroughfare. And it housed the laundry hookups. So this is a very hardworking and significant room, in my humble opinion.
First things first, the linoleum had to go… Now I don’t know if you’ve ever removed linoleum before, but it can be a major pain to say the least. Basically the top, plasticky layer peels off without too much crazy effort. But, then you are stuck with the adhesive layer below it. And this stuff can be next to impossible to remove.
I hesitate to even share this with you all, but after trying a variety of methods, we settled on the heat method… AKA the blow torch. I won’t say the fire alarm never went off, and I won’t say that the trim never caught on fire… Basically, Jake would blow torch the area and I would take a metal ice scraper and scrape the (sometimes ignited) linoleum adhesive off the floor.
All in all, this was not the smartest home renovation project we’ve ever done. And in retrospect, why did we need to remove the adhesive??? We definitely should have just tiled over it and saved ourselves the sweaty, stressful nightmare that it was. Oh well, you live and learn.
Finally, with all the linoleum removed. It was time to begin tiling!!! This was by and far the single most time consuming project we did on this flip house. Tiling is a lot of work! It’s not necessarily super hard… but it is tricky, especially if you’re going for quality craftsmanship.
As I shared in the mudroom design plans, my vision for this space included a classic checkered tile floor. I was really hoping to get a marble look, but also knew full well that I was definitely not going to fit real marble in the budget (this is a flip after all). The space was pretty large and so I set out to find a line of tiles that were larger than 12″ x 12″ and that had a white and gray marble look tile.
It was important for me that they both came from the same line because that is the easiest way to ensure that they will fit together. Many tiles are different depths, or have different finished edges, or more or less shiny finishes. After a bit of searching, I honed in on the MSI Porcelain Alicante Tile in Bianco and Grigio.
Now, sadly I don’t think this tile is available any more at Home Depot right now… But fear not, I have rounded up some other beautiful options that are very similar and great prices:
EMSER tiles from Home Depot
You should be able to mix and match any of these since they are the same brand, and finish. There are a variety of options in the 18″ and 24″ sizes.
- Potenza Dove 17.72 in. x 17.72 in. Matte Porcelain Stone Look Tile
- Sandstorm Kalahari Matte 17.72 in. x 17.72 in. Porcelain Tile
- Realm Ii Nation 17.72 in. x 17.72 in. Matte Porcelain Stone Look Tile
- Contessa Dama Matte 17.72 in. x 17.72 in. Porcelain Tile
- Contessa Oro 17.72 in. x 17.72 in. Matte Marble Look Porcelain
- Sterlina Gray 23.62 in. x 23.62 in. Matte Marble Look Porcelain Tile
- Sterlina White 23.62 in. x 23.62 in. Matte Marble Look Porcelain Tile
- Sterlina Asphalt 23.62 in. x 23.62 in. Matte Marble Look Porcelain Tile
- Contessa Oro 23.82 in. x 23.82 in. Matte Marble Look Porcelain Tile
- Contessa Dama 23.82 in. x 23.82 in. Matte Marble Look Porcelain
For even more tile options and a deeper look into designing marble-like checkered tile floors, check out my in depth post on the subject.
As I said earlier, tiling this 300 square foot mudroom was no joke! It took us nearly 2 weeks to complete. We started by layout out the tile. Doing a diamond pattern is a little different than when the tiles are square to the walls. We started in the middle so that the tiles would be centered and worked our way out from there.
This is considered large format tile, so we used mapei’s mortar that was specifically formulated for LFT (larg format tile). The one thing we didn’t do, that wouldn’t made our lives easier, was use a tile leveling system. In more recent projects using large tiles, we’ve utilized the tile leveling systems and found them very helpful in getting a quality tile job.
We decided on a 1/16″ grout line, and I think it was a great choice! It can be scary to do a small grout joint if you are worried the tiles won’t line up right or the floor is not completely level. But in this case, the tiles looked great and we didn’t have any issues with the small grout lines.
And we used my absolute favorite grout. Seriously, never use any other kind… other grouts are inferior. We matched the grout color to the gray tiles, since white grout in a mudroom is probably a bad idea. I love Mapei’s grout because it is so easy to work with, unlike the sanded grouts I’ve tried from Home Depot and Menards. And, it has excellent color consistency which is SUPER important. I’ve used grout before that changes color based on how much water you mix in and each batch is slightly different. Needless to say, that is not a good look.
Once the floors were finally completed, it was painting time! Our painters painted everything in the color SW Greek Villa. And the doors got done in SW Agreeable Gray. In this house, the trim was all very small and wimpy looking. But, it was still in decent shape. So, we made the decision to keep it, and paint it the same color as the walls in order that it would blend in. I think it created a more minimalist modern vibe that worked in the style of the house.
One design element that did not stay from the original plans was the laundry area buildout. I was hoping to install a counter over the washer and dryer and kind of make them look built in to the sink cabinet. But, after going back and forth on it, we decided not to buy the washer and dryer and let the future homeowners pick that out themselves. In retrospect, we’re not sure we would do that again, as the buyers used the fact that there was no washer/dryer as a negotiation tactic. But you live and you learn!
We did install this very beautiful stainless sink. I am in love with how the legs are separate from the sink bowl and support it so elegantly! I might be a little jealous that they get this laundry sink…
And the final touch, to really make this mud/laundry room shine, we added a shaker peg rail that wrapped around the whole room, as well as the adjoining half bath. To create this shaker peg rail look, we installed primed pine 1×3 wood pieces to the wall. Then we drilled holes and installed these shaker pegs with a bit of wood glue. Although I had considered painting the shaker pegs the same color as the wall and rails, the natural wood tone added a nice warmth that the room was lacking. So we opted to leave them in their natural state.
And now, for the moment you’ve all been waiting for… the after pictures!!!! In the end, this room just needed a new floor, sink, some paint, storage wall, and a little fix-up job on the doors. And that is enough to completely transform a space from bleh and dingy to bright and classically beautiful. I even got to use our shaker style entry bench to stage the mudroom.
I hope you enjoyed seeing the progression of this combo mudroom laundry room! I have been enjoying seeing all the ways others have been incorporating checkerboard tiled floors into their designs. One thing I did notice after we completed this project, was that the gray tiles are much more forgiving in a mudroom than the white tiles. So, I’m probably never going to do white tiles on the floor in my own home. We are just way too messy!!