a screen porch turned entry-way/ laundry room

We assume that our lovely 1940s home originally had a screen porch, but at some point washing machines came a long and in a need to find space for a washer the owners enclosed the space. This was done kind of haphazardly...such so that the "laundry room" had an exterior window that looked in to our living room and an exterior door leading to our living room. Needless to say this provides an awkward living space, not to mention the horribly cheap looking faux wood paneling that was used to enclose the space. Some other fun details are that all the electric wires for the room ran on the outside of the walls and the hot water heater was to large and obtrusive for the space.

Below are some photos in the middle of stripping the room down to its studs so we could actually run electrical in the walls and then sheet rock over them. I wish I had pictures of the ugly faux wood paneling and the layers of green and mustard exterior siding and tar paper we found underneath it. These pictures show where the old exterior window and door we removed were and how it did literally look into our living room

 We knew we wanted to overhaul the space for many of the reasons above, but especially since our parking lead us to enter the house through the back door that leads into this porch/laundry room mess. We wanted this room to serve as a pleasing to the eye entry way/ mudroom.

However it would still have to serve as a laundry room and utility room for our water heater. Not liking the idea of having out laundry in plain view as we entered our house, we decide to divide the room into two rooms. Luckily it was long enough to do so. This way we could have our laundry room and water heater behind closed doors and would have a nice entry space/ mudroom when we enter out house.

Here are some pictures of the middle of construction. It shows how we added recessed lighting, Collins building the wall that will divide the two rooms, and Collins framing the empty hole of where the window once was. We also added HVAC vents into the room so it would count towards our square footage.

My next post will show our dry wall adventure. I don't wish the task of mudding and sanding on anyone. We did it ourselves, but after such an experience I truly believe it is something that should be left to the professionals.