Mudroom Plans for the Fischer Flip

If you follow along with me on social media, you have been seeing the mudroom tile going in. So, I thought it would be a good time to share with you my vision for the very epic and large mud/laundry room at our latest flip house.

Le’ts start with some before pictures so you can get an understanding of the space…

The mudrooom is right off the the living room, and near the entry way. It is a whopping 250 square feet and includes: a laundry area, half bath, 2 coat closets, garage access, basement access, and exterior access. Is there anything this space doesn’t have?!? When we first saw this house, I was enamored with this room and I truly believe it will be a major selling feature of this house.

When something is going to be a selling feature, it’s worth the time, money, and effort to really make it shine. I knew I wanted to do some time of tonal trim around the whole room and incorporate shaker pegs for practical and beautiful storage.

This inspiration mudroom space always gets me with it’s rustic beauty!! And I wanted to do a similar treatment with trim painted the same color as the trim, doors, and windows with shaker pegs.

I love modeling things in sketchup to get a better idea of the design and iron out details. So I started out with the below design. I want to incorporate some builtin boxes for the washer and dryer and have some double shaker pegs on the one wall, and a bench next to the garage.

I actually already know what bench I’m going to stage this space with!! A few months ago I found the most beautiful shaker-style entry bench on FB Marketplace for our home. It will go so beautifully here and I love that I can stay true to a shaker look in here. (Let’s see how far I can take the shaker theme!!)

So, I had been trying to decide exactly what trimwork we would do on the wall, board and batten, like this room?

Or a simple beadboard, or vertical panelling would be pretty….

But I knew that both of those options would be very labor intensive… doable though. In flipping, your goal is to shorten the time you hold the house, and the more complicated things are, the longer they take. I was trying to brainstorm a simpler solution to get the same effect when I came upon these (traditional Shaker) pictures:

It all became clear! We will do this shaker style peg rail with a chair rail below for a beautiful, historic look that will take MUCH less effort. My plan is paint the trim, doors, and windows in SW Agreeable Gray for a subtle tonal look.

With that aspect of the design figured out, I moved onto the flooring… Jake requested large tiles for speed of install. I looked through quite a few options trying to find a cheap ( <$3/sq ft ) tile that looked like stone. There were some definite options. But at the same time, I had become obsessed with the marble checkered floor and was considering the look for the master bathroom.

The more I saw pictures of the check flooring idea, the more I knew that I wanted to do it in the mudroom. There are infinite examples to show you. Chris Loves Julia just did a spectacular version of this in their dining room. And here are a few inspiration photos I adore…

This image is by the magnificent Ham Interiors and I could include every photo of this home in my all time favorite designs. But, I especially loved seeing the trimwork in the color I am thinking. Also, I noted, the matte tile, and larger size.

Here is another home where you see a gray and white checkered diagonal floor with the soft greige trimwork.

And of course this is why it is such a lovely idea for a mudroom. I love the two floors meeting and the peek a boo effect of this beautiful tile.

I went on a search for the perfect checkerboard tiles with a few criteria in mind:

• Less than $3 a square foot (it’s a large space so budget really counts!)
• Matte tile
• Larger tiles (preferably 18″)
• Porcelain tile that had a white marble option and a gray marble option (preferably with veining)

It was tricky to pick these out, and it’s tough to go off on online pictures that may not be accurate. I first found the Urban tiles at Bedrosians and fell in love… but sadly they were over budget.

After hours of searching online, I came across these MSI Alicante tiles at Home Depot. They met all my criteria! Plus, I like shopping at HD because their return policy makes me feel safe. I ordered the Bianco and the Grigio.

We have a good chunk of the floor now laid and I have to say, I am very pleased! These have been great tiles so far, they didn’t come with any broken and they seem to be good quality.

One thing I didn’t anticipate was the tile waste that occurs when you lay the tile diagonally. Because both ends of the room end up needing over half the tile of either color, you end up with significant waste. And I think we will be short on tile and need to order more…

And on to the final design decision for this space (not including the half bath, which I’ll go into in another post): the laundry area.

I knew a few things: I wanted to add a countertop for folding. Also, it was important to have some side panels and built-ins for the laundry appliances since guests would be walking past them to use the bathroom.

I was up in the air about the sink cabinet mainly. I was feeling uninspired, and trying to deal with the issue that most cabinets are 36″ tall while laundry machines are 40″. Do I do two-levels of countertop? I don’t know… until I saw this picture and it all became clear.

If I do a stainless steel sink, it’s its own separate unit and my countertop problem goes away. Plus, it’s very utilitarian yet classy. So I plan to pretty much replicate this look with a wood countertop and panels for the appliances and a stainless utility sink.

There are still a few things I need to nail down, like what height will the peg rails be, will I do shelves above the utility sink etc. But overall I feel very excited about the direction of this space and am hopeful it will make some future homeowners very happy!