The Mudroom and Screened Porch

Off the kitchen at the back of our house there's a large space that we were able to divide into two separate zones: one is a mudroom, and serves as our main entry into the house. The other side is a screened porch, which has proven to be an amazing place to sit and enjoy the beautiful summer weather we are having lately.

The door pictured here leads into our kitchen, then there is another door leading to the outside on the left:  

The storage piece is this one from Ballard Designs. It is great for our little family since it has three separate storage cubbies, with both open and closed storage.

I originally planned to have our finish carpenters build something similar for out here, but when I found an existing piece of furniture that basically mirrored exactly what I was going to have built, I decided to save everyone the trouble. No regrets here!

The mudroom floor is definitely one of my favorite floors in the house (this being the other one). 

It's a greyish/brown wood-look tile laid in a right angle herringbone pattern. I am super happy with how the design turned out, and tile is absolutely the right choice for a mudroom floor. 

One thing I really wanted to avoid was having my beautiful kitchen cluttered up with papers, mail, calendars, etc., so we created this little command center space in the mudroom. 

It's just big enough to contain everything we need, but not so big that it becomes a black hole of miscellaneous papers and whatnot.

The door leading to the outside of our home has a doggy door so Murphy can enjoy the outdoors and the indoors when he's home alone.

He approves. 

The exterior doors, including the front door, are all painted Benjamin Moore's Van Deusen Blue, which for some reason looks much darker here than it is in real life: 

I chose this color because it complements the red brick nicely, and also since we have a lot of blue tones in our interiors I felt like this was a fun little preview of what's to come once you get inside. 

Then, the larger section of this part of the house is a screened porch:

In my mind I was thinking this would be a nice place to hang out in the late spring and early fall, but we have gotten SO much use out of this room already. 

The ceiling fan definitely helps make it tolerable on the hotter days, but honestly it is very pleasant out here on all but the 100 degree + days, which thankfully have been few and far between.

Of course, being surrounded by open windows helps a great deal. 

The sofa is Brown Jordan via Home Depot. I went with this outdoor sofa mainly because it was customizable, but also because Brown Jordan has a fantastic reputation for standing behind their furniture - it is guaranteed for something like 10 years, which is basically unheard of in the world of outdoor furniture (or indoor furniture, for that matter). 

It is super comfy and has proven to be an ideal spot for afternoon naps :)

The rug is also an indoor/outdoor one from Rugs USA. The vibe I was hoping to capture out here was "Nancy Myers Movie Set" and I felt like the blue and white color scheme from the rug helped achieve that nicely.

The round table is one from our previous living room, which I painted with white chalk paint.

It remains to be seen how this will hold up over the winter, but the table was headed for the donation pile anyway, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to try and resuscitate it.

The chairs are from Target, and I am pleasantly surprised by how much I like them. 

I think the back detail is so pretty, and the navy outdoor fabric fits in perfectly out here:

On the wall behind the chairs I have a couple of larger decorative pieces, as well as a tall etagere, which I found at an estate sale and spray-painted white. 

Lots of outdoor-friendly decor and a basket full of throws for when the weather cools down. 

One piece I really love is this statue from Homegoods:

I think it's intended to be a bird feeder, but I just liked the sort of zen feeling it adds to this space. 

E thinks it's really great too since it's basically the same height as her. She especially likes putting her animal crackers in his hands.

The only other thing we might add out here is a tall plant, maybe something like this fiddle leaf fig:

Unfortunately, I have a bit of a black thumb, so I'm not sure I want to buy a big plant only to kill it off in a few months (which is what usually happens for me).  We'll see.

So, that's the screened porch. We love using this space, and I know we'll continue to spend lots of time out here even as the weather cools off into the fall. 

Thanks for reading!