Monkeys, palm trees and dirty laundry ... oh my !!

Welcome to our mudroom, where you'll find yourselves surrounded by a bunch of monkeys !!  Nooo, not John, Jax and me, silly, but our walls !!  Okay, so YES, I do have one other room decked out in wallpaper.  When I first spotted the fun paper in my hairstylist's studio, I LOVED it ... had to have it ... didn't know where I was going to put it, mind you, but I HAD to have it !!  We decided on the mudroom because I thought this was someplace unexpected for a fun paper such as this.

BEFORE: I took this picture of our mudroom the day after we moved in ... basic white ... wire shelf ... no storage, etc.  It was politely screaming for us to give it a little personality.  So, that's what we did (or attempted to do, anyway).  As always, feel free to click on pics to enlarge them.

AFTER:  Welcome to the jungle !!  Are your eyes going crazy from all of the monkeys and palms?  Well, not only did we add the paper, but we added crown molding, maple upper cabinets and a double base cabinet.  I painted the ceiling SW Blonde, and we replaced the light fixture (oops, sorry you can't see it).  I can't tell you how much I love having the extra storage !!

I recently scored this fun wall clock from Kirkland's:

We found this great mirror w/ hooks at Lowe's.  And, the storage bench's former home was, once again, Kirkland's.  I'm sure it appreciates us throwing our stinky "go to" shoes in there !!

Finally, I recently turned this little area into our "command center." (I'll give you one guess where the precious monkey lamp came from!).  Thankfully, we saved the countertop that used to be on our kitchen island ... our contractors were able to cut it down and use it here !!  I love that the wide drawer below (seen in other picture) serves as our "neat" junk drawer, filled with pads, pens, small "fix it" items, etc.  And, Jax loves calling one of the base cabinets "his," by storing his coloring books, crayons, stickers, etc. there.  Um, did I already mention how much I LOVE the extra storage !! 

So, there ya' have it.  Now, I'd love your honest opinions here ... it's been 3 years since we added this wallpaper.  And, well, you can imagine that I'm getting the itch to redo the walls.  When I look back at the "before" pic, I somewhat miss the light color ... how the washer and dryer blend into the wall, instead of popping out and screaming at you against the red walls.  So ... my wonderful blogging friends ... what do you think?  Paint it back to a lighter color or keep it as is?

Thanks for stopping by,





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