Addition Reno Extends the Kitchen with a Wetbar

I’ve always known that we needed a major overhaul of the shed addition on our rowhome. For years I’ve thought about all of the different updates we could make – adding a powder room, moving laundry upstairs, creating a custom pantry – but a small leak forced me make a decision faster than I’d planned on!

A shed addition is local term for a small, single-story addition on the back of a rowhome. These additions were often built in the 1950s and usually were used to add kitchen appliances like gas stoves and sinks during that time. My addition is about 60 sq ft and is directly between the kitchen and the backyard.

This is a very kind picture – it’s right before we started work so everything is very clean – we had a metal shelf in the corner and both the shelf and pegboard were usually filled with tools.

There were so many layers of different flooring that the door would hit the floor when you opened it – you can see where the door was wearing off the paint from the floor in this picture.

A year ago we had a small leak in the addition roof – although we fixed the leak quickly it caused some damage to the floor in front of the door and the door itself. We had a contractor come in to get us an estimate for a new door, jamb, and threshold but he let us know that we needed to address any damage to the floor before the door went in. We placed the work order and had 2-3 months to get ready before the door arrived.

I already had extra tile from my kitchen renovation on-hand, because I always knew I wanted to update the addition, but never knew when it would happen.

….so if I was going to need to rip up part of the floor to fix any damage, it seemed like I should just rip up all the floor and replace with tile.

…and since I was ripping up all the floor and replacing it with tile, it seemed like I should replace the old sink that I’d always wanted to update.

You can see how this project started feeling like If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.

I wasn’t ready to decide between powder room/laundry/custom pantry just yet, and we needed to get the floor fixed before the door arrived, so we decided that we would focus on replacing the sink and leave enough empty space where we could make that decision in the future. In the meantime, I’d put a freestanding cabinet in the corner to use for storage.

So I ordered the main fixtures, found a contractor, and we started the work!

When we had pulled up the floor to lay new subfloor, I started looking at the wall behind the pegboard – the visible brick beneath the floor looked like it was in good condition – it was really straight, it wasn’t crumbling – so we decided to pull down the board over the wall and seal the brick.

The wall on the left is covered in drywall, but this back wall was a thinner board – we pulled it down to expose the brick.

The adhesive on the wall wasn’t a surprise – but the layers of pink paint were.

I was unpleasantly surprised to see many, many layers of paint. If I had been DIYing this project I might have tried stripping off all of the paint to get the brick below, but because I was working with a GC and we had timelines to keep, I decided to just paint the brick white – still much better than the board that was up previously!

Glad I didn’t try stripping it – after removing the adhesive we could see at least 4-5 different layers of paint.

Although we weren’t able to use a clear sealer, a layer of white paint is just as nice and much better than it was!

After laying the floor tile and installing the sink, the room started to come back together!

We installed a butcher block countertop that matched our other countertops to make the mudroom feel more like an extension of the kitchen. We found a sink that had a drainboard which is great for the wetbar but also really convenient for letting plants drain after watering them.

An dual-zone beverage fridge was the most fun addition – it adds so much storage and is in a great location for when we’re hanging out in the backyard.

So what’s next for this room?

As far as making a decision for a powder room, laundry room, or custom pantry – I’ll give myself another year or two to think about it!

In the meantime, I’m adding a tall freestanding cabinet to the left of the sink – a freestanding cabinet will give us storage but flexibility to move it if we decide to build something permanent later.

We’re still waiting on the new glass door and window to arrive as well as new cabinet doors for the sink cabinet. This cabinet base was one that was in-stock and the right size, so I purchased it knowing I’d want to switch the doors to a simpler Shaker style after we installed.