Our basement has come a long way since we first bought this old house. From a run down bathroom and spray painted walls, to a refinished space with plenty of room for storage. When we first renovated the basement bathroom, we also bumped out the wall of our basement landing with the idea that we would one day build mudroom storage. Well, 18 months later, and that day has finally come.

The back door of our house opens up directly to two sets of stairs. One set of three that lead up to the kitchen, and the second that lead down to the basement. And because we use this entrance most often, we needed space to take off shoes, coats, etc. without piling everything up in the kitchen. This led to Dan’s idea of creating mudroom storage directly down the stairs of the basement. While initially there wasn’t enough space for what he envisioned, we ended up taking the walls down anyway to renovate the bathroom, so it was easy enough for us to have this wall bumped out a bit too. Up until this point, we’ve been using an old vintage chair in this space for taking shoes on and off, which worked well enough but definitely didn’t maximize the space.

And so the mudroom storage project began, like all others do, with a trip to Home Depot.

The idea was to have two columns of shelving, one on either side, with a seat in the middle that would also contain storage. I’d say this was Dan’s most challenging carpentry project yet, and I couldn’t wait to see how it came out.

He started by building the frame for each of the storage columns. The base of these frames would be built using ¾ sanded plywood, and then trimmed out using 1×2 pine boards.

Once each of the storage columns were built, he added crown molding to the top. This matches the upstairs molding and will give the storage space a more custom, finished look.

The support beams are enclosed with drywall and run across the top of the mudroom, so each column ended up being about 73 inches high. After accounting for the crown molding and trim, it left us with about a 63 inch opening for the shelves themselves. We decided to split this evenly into four shelves, giving us plenty of space to add storage baskets for hats, gloves, etc. And so Dan added small trim pieces that acted as rails to hold the shelving in place. By this time, we had already begun priming the wood.

Dan built the base of the seat itself using 2x4s for extra support. After this was framed in, he added a shelf underneath the seat that will be covered up by a  hinged, pull-down door, acting as additional storage space.

Now that the main framework of the mudroom storage was now in place, it was time to add the detail work and finishing touches. Dan custom cut the shelves to fit the space of each of the storage columns, and finished them off with matching 1×2 pine. We then painted the entire unit white, with the accent being the slab of oak wood that was used for the seat itself. To make this, Dan used biscuit joints to connect 1×6 oak pieces together, making it appear to be a seamless 2 inch slab of wood. He then finished it off with Minwax Dark Walnut, making the grain pop out of the wood beautifully and helped to complete the overall look of the mudroom.

As I mentioned, this was Dan’s most challenging carpentry project yet, and it’s safe to say it was a success. It came out better than either one of us could have ever imagined and now that winter is here, it won’t be long before we’re able to put it to good use.