Well, friends, the garage has hit another wave of stalling…this time we have been waiting on the siding to be delivered. We are still waiting. Tomorrow? Next day? Definitely this week? We’ll see.
But, in the meantime, I thought you might like to see what has been progressing on this never-ending (at least it seems that way 8 months in) project.

First: The roof. Metal. Fabulous. Matches the roof we put on the house (with the help of an Amish crew) in 2014. It took some doing (and some Ben investigating) to find the right color, but he made a great match! And…who knew that gray that doesn’t look brown would be so difficult the first time or the second time?

 

Next: Our Cockamamy custom windows…

The big horizontal window in the mudroom (with coat hooks and a bench beneath it…eventually) is actually an amazing antique door Ben found—and promptly purchased—at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. It is HUGE and HEAVY and stunning. He bought it a while back…maybe even two years ago? All I know is we’ve been working around this gigantic treasure for a long time and we knew we’d do something really cool with it. And here it is! Installed!

A few of my favorite door details…the doorknob inside the mudroom and the price tag still hanging on the knob that’s outside.

Another of Ben’s amazing ReStore finds…this super cute door that will be the door to the mudroom closet.

 

Now back to the Cockamamy window situation…

I decided we needed some architectural interest on the mudroom’s front exterior, where the new front door will be. To the left of the door is the closet and to the right is a short wall that attaches to the house. We decided we’d like to have a little decorative window in the back of the mudroom closet, especially since the door to the closet will be glass on top (see above). So, I went digging at the ReStore and found a couple of options. We decided to go with the one below with the four panes, to mimic our other doors and windows in the space.

 

And here it is installed, from the exterior…

…and from the interior looking out. Note that we didn’t remove the old window hardware or re-paint it. We’re going to let it weather a bit and see what happens.

The second pane I bought (they were $2 each!) is equally as chippy and old and beautiful. So I decided to use it as a frame for art. I just happened to have this really fun letter press print I bought as a gift for us for our 5-year anniversary that we celebrated at the start of November. Doesn’t it make the perfect frame? I love it! I want to get some gnarly rope to hang it up.

 

The final window is a BIG ONE! Ben is building it himself (far left of the photo below). It will let the natural light pour into his workshop space! It is actually six panes, and each pane is a glass shower door. Yup. You guessed it. ReStore again. And again, a purchase Ben made a couple of years ago and we’ve been dreaming up cool things to do with our four sets of heavy glass shower doors. We’ve had lots of ideas (mostly for a green house or as cold frames) but this one is the best yet. So, the three clear-glass sets will be giant window panes on the garage’s north wall. The fourth set is frosted, and probably will be a cold frame—we’ll turn the big frame that the antique door came in into a raised bed planter and top it with the shower doors for a mini-greenhouse where we can grow greens in the winter.

 

Finally, we have hired an electrician and I ordered all the fixtures for the garage and mudroom exterior and the mudroom’s interior. For now, these are taking up precious not-yet-my-dining-room space. Exciting and gorgeous and I can’t wait to get them installed, but until then… I’m SO ready to have some storage space!

The exterior fixtures are the same as on the house, Design House Mason from Lowe’s. We will have two of these flanking the garage door, flanking the French doors, one at the mudroom’s entry door, and two flanking the big antique door/window inside the mudroom.

And inside the mudroom, we’ll have this gorgeous glass pendant—but its large, more chandelier size—hanging from the exposed rafters. The string lights I want to weave back and forth between the rooflines of the house and garage over what we call “the secret garden”…where you walk between the two buildings to get to the mudroom porch and door.

 

As you can see, we are making some progress, even with the waiting game. I can.not.wait. to be able to show you a finished exterior! Stay tuned, my friends!! Any minute now that siding will arrive!

 

As a closing, a little peek at our living room chalkboard calendar for November 2016…