Now that winter has arrived (well…sorta—it was 65 degrees yesterday), we are putting the exterior projects to bed for the season, done or not. One that’s not complete—but totally worth sharing—is our mudroom’s exterior entrance. I have big plans for this space and I am so very excited about it. By this time next year, it will be so fab! But for now, it is well on its way with a tile porch floor and a fun siding treatment.

Here’s the before…

As a reminder, this space sits tucked back from the front facades of the garage and house. This door opens onto the “connector” (our mudroom) that spans the ten feet or so between the house and garage.

This entry has a small covered front porch. Our hope is that this will become our main entrance to the house, rather than the original front door that opens directly into the living room.

Ben broke out his tool bags and siding skills to clad the wall perpendicular to the door with shake siding (same as on the second floor of the house).

For the porch floor, we gave our friend and tile whisperer, Jeff, free reign to work his magic. He chose large format slate tiles from The Home Depot and set to work creating an inspired-by-basketweave-pattern of his own making.

Here’s a look at the completed wall and floor…

In the images below, you are looking straight out the mudroom exterior door. The house is on the left, the garage is on the right (in the same lap siding as the house). The newly shaked wall is on the right side of the porch.

The space between the structures is what I’m calling “The Secret Garden” because of my vision of this space as one overflowing with plants, and French bistro-style string lights overhead. There will be a narrow pea gravel path through the center of the plantings to lead you to the stairs that (will one day) ascend to this porch.

There’s lots to do to make all of that come to life (including finishing up painting all that nude-panty-house trim…ugh, and ditching the satellite dishes). Is it too early to say I’m already dreaming of spring?