The Mud Room, aka The Dermot Healy Hall, Emerges

Let me just say first off, I deeply appreciate and admire those of you who disciplined enough to blog regularly, if not everyday then at least a few times each week. Even weekly is darn impressive.

Lately, time is barreling past me like a Kardashian racing to a lingerie sale.

In the last week we:

     Started the mud room
     Had our big metal pile removed
     Sold seventeen ducks and ten roosters
     Assisted Mucca with the delivery of her first calf
     Dealt with the new (old) barn pieces being delivered
     Ordered twenty-two more tons of gravel and spread it in the drive.
     Tore down the steers shed and relocated all items in the path of the new (old) barn
     Ordered and witnessed the execution of  two huge Elm trees to make room for the barn.
    
    
 Let's talk mudroom first. I'll hit the other events in future posts. Here are the before and after pictures.  A slab of concrete off the front (and only) door of The Looney Bin, turned into 48 SF of usable space for housing our chore clothes, boots, egg baskets, fur coats, etc.




Our friend Jay came and spent two days here lending us his tools and expertise.  We three shopped for all our supplies last Saturday morning at Menards  spending $630 of the $1000 we had budgeted for this project. Then Jay and Keith worked through crappy rain and cold conditions, as seen on the radar below, while I kept hot meals and coffee on the ready. All together it took them about 12 hours to complete 70% of the mudroom. Mudroom is its common name whereas The Dermot Healy Hall is its official uppity name, since all funding came through that fine Irish Poet.

They nailed the frame directly to the concrete using mostly new lumber and constructed a temporary roof for some weather relief. We also splurged on a new window and security door.

 

Then they added a layer of roofing paper as a moisture barrier.

The roof was created out of three leftover pieces from the Looney Bin when Keith cut out the original door frame. Placed horizontally the natural curve of the metal panels will help water run off the roof. One day we'd like to have a rain water collection barrel nearby. Keith recycled old lumber as roof supports since these panels are thick and heavy.




The third roof panel was tricky since it had to be cut to match the curve of the Bin.
but Keith measured and re-measured and got the job done with slow steady cutting., attaching it with a couple of buckets of caulk covered screws.

Jay framed in the metal door (below) and they used pieces of the metal siding from the collapsed 165 year old barn on our property, to cover the outside of the mud room. Keith had taken these roof panels off the old barn two years ago always knowing "one day" he'd have a use for them.

As you can see there is rust and several holes but we'll be covering the metal roofing, now mud room siding, with clear paintable caulk and then a coat of metal paint in silver to match the Loony Bin. This paint is made just for barn roofs and isn't cheap at  $40/gallon, but still well worth it.  By recycling the old barn roof panels we saved over two hundred dollars as we did not have to purchase new siding for the mudroom.

About 4 pm Sunday the guys called it quits just as the rain let up. Of course.  Today Keith is plugging all the holes and gaps with silicone caulk and Great Stuff expandable foam along with some tar paper tape. Later this week we will add batt insulation, plywood walls and finish the plywood bench Jay built. Then I'll paint the inside walls with Menards returned paint, only $5 a gallon. it's a light green and it'll do. After that, hooks for coats and shelves for gloves. I'm so excited and I just can't hide it.

I envision a flower box under the mudroom's window as well as some planters on either side of the door. I think bright red geraniums will go nicely with the crisp white door. Your thoughts?