Before-and-after photos show how a woman boosted her home's curb appeal with a mudroom and statement arch

Business Insider

3 days ago

Steffy Degreff's home has changed a lot since she and her husband bought it in late 2017.
Degreff, a full-time content creator, and her husband, Matt Degreff, bought their home in Long Beach, New York, in 2017. They have been raising their sons, Hudson, 8, and Charlie, 5, and their dog, Claude Pepper, there ever since.
When they bought the house, which was originally built in 1954, it had three bedrooms and two bathrooms. However, the Degreffs did a big renovation in 2019. Now, it has three bathrooms, and they converted an attic into an additional bedroom.
"To be honest, when we bought it, I don't think we viewed it as a forever home," Degreff told Business Insider. "It needed so much work that it was overwhelming to think that we would be the people to do that work, but everything that's good takes time."
"Now, eight years later, it's finally in a place where I don't feel like we have anything massive to do on it anymore," she added.
Degreff has been putting her personal, whimsical stamp on her home for years.
Although their big renovation took place years ago, Degreff updates her home almost constantly, taking on DIY projects and documenting them on her social media pages. She paints areas of her home throughout the year and makes small additions in her personal style, which she describes as "vintage grandma."
Some of her projects are meant to be temporary, like painting doors or windows, while others are longer-term.
For instance, Degreff constructed built-in bookshelves for one room in her house, painting them green and adding floral touches to the doorway next to them.
"A lot of the bigger projects I do with permanence in mind," she told BI. "If I'm putting up built-in bookshelves or redoing paneling in a bedroom, chances are I'm not ripping that out. But paint is just such a fun way to change your vibe year to year."
Although they had personalized their home, there was still one part of the house that wasn't working for the Degreffs by 2024: the entryway.
From the outside, a simple staircase led to the Degreffs' front door, which had a small patio next to it. Inside, guests entered the living room.
"I always knew that the entry to my home was less than ideal," Degreff told BI. "People would walk in, and we had nowhere to put our coats. We had no coat closet. It was freezing in the winter."
In 2024, the Degreff family reached a breaking point with the entrance to their home. They decided they wanted an entryway that would provide storage, make their living area warmer, and fit the aesthetic of their home.
The Degreffs decided to extend the front of their home to make space for the mudroom and a statement archway.
Degreff said she got inspiration for the renovation from other homes in her area.
"I started walking around the neighborhood and getting ideas, and the really cool thing about Long Beach is that there's a multitude of home styles," she said, including Spanish, Victorian, and Cape Cod houses. "No two homes are exactly alike, which brings an endless amount of inspiration."
As she studied homes in her neighborhood, Degreff found herself drawn to the ones with rounded doors, but she didn't want to commit to the nontraditional shape.
"I started to think outside the box of what can I do that looks like that same quaint, cottagey type of look but isn't actually the door, and that's where I landed on the arch," Degreff added.
The project kicked off in May 2024 with the removal of the existing steps at the home.
The new room and arch extended out of the front of the house, adding just 80 square feet to the space. But it would have the closet the Degreff family wanted so desperately.
Degreff comes from a family of contractors, so it was a no-brainer for her to hire her uncle, Pat Gordon Contracting, for the project.
She also worked with James Joyce Architect, and she tapped Weathertop Masonry to find brick that would match the home's existing stonework.
The arch was the most difficult aspect of the renovation to create.
Like the rest of the house, the arch was raised off the ground, and stairs led to the platform entrance. The arch pointed at the top, while the door beneath was designed with a round window atop it for contrast.
Degreff told BI that Weathertop Masonry was integral to creating the archway, which was almost entirely made of brick and stone. She said the team initially tried to find vintage bricks to match the house, and when that didn't work, Degreff said Paul Scanio, Weathertop Masonry's president, got creative.
"We ended up ordering a blend of two or three different types of brick, and the way that he grabbed and picked each brick, it mixed it in a way that made it look exactly like the old brick on my house," Degreff said.
Degreff chose custom tile for the interior of the mudroom.
Degreff said she spent "hours and hours" researching tiles before selecting a green, patterned set from London Mosaic.
The tile was laid in August, and Degreff held off decorating the rest of the space until January 2025, getting used to it before deciding how to finish it.
When Degreff finished the mudroom, green was integral to the design.
Thanks to the arch, the inside of the mudroom has high ceilings, and Degreff played up that height by painting the walls and ceilings a deep green.
A textured light hangs from the ceiling, and the window above the door lets in natural light.
There's a second door that leads to the living room, making the main house warmer.
Degreff added a bench to the entryway.
When you enter the mudroom, the long-awaited coat closet sits on the right, but the left side was a blank canvas for Degreff to decorate.
"I knew I wanted to do a bench seating with a little open shelf, something that I could restyle seasonally, and a spot to hang extra stuff," she told BI.
She did the work on the corner herself, adding paneling to the wall behind and next to the bench for some texture. A wooden shelf floated above the bench, and Degreff added hooks to the wall for jackets and purses.
Degreff said the mudroom is already making her home more functional.
"It's so nice," Degreff said of having a mudroom. "This was the first winter that we walked into having a mudroom, and it's just so much easier having a place to put the kids' sports bags and hang up our coats."
"For work, I have a lot of random props that I get, and I have a closet space there now," she added. "It's not just sitting by the front door in the middle of the living room."
The archway also improved the home's curb appeal, as Degreff's neighbors can attest.
The arch drastically changed the house's appearance, but Degreff said all the work they did on the exterior in 2024 improved its curb appeal.
"We were adding sod, we added a fence, we added landscaping, so the arch is just like a piece of other things that definitely made the house more attractive from the outside," she said.
Degreff said people who live in her community noticed the upgrades.
"The amount of neighbors that are excited about it has also been really cute," Degreff said. "I have at least one neighbor every day, and it's been a year, that's like, 'Your house came out so great. I love how it looks.'"
She feels like the exterior finally matches the interior.
"Nobody realized that it was cute inside because it had sad grass and it was just so dumpy outside, and now I feel like people get it," she said. "When we first did the renovation, people asked me when I moved in and welcomed me to the neighborhood because they thought I had just bought the house and started to fix it up."
She also has fun changing up her doorway seasonally.
Degreff has been switching up the decor out front to match the season.
"Decorating it every season has been so fun," she said. "I put leaves around the arch for fall last year, and then I did garlands and lights for Christmas, and it's just fun and festive."
She told BI that she's also "constantly" repainting the front door. Degreff knows repainting it so often might lead to wear and tear long-term, but she considers it a work expense because so much of her content revolves around her house.
"I sand it in between, but it does get thick. It's definitely a casualty, and I look at it as a business expense at this point," she said. "Worst case scenario, I will, in five years, get a different door and start from scratch. There's nothing saying the door has to be forever."
Having a clear vision helped Degreff bring her renovation to life.
Degreff didn't have an exact cost breakdown for her mudroom and arch renovation because she and her husband also had work done on their driveway and other parts of their home. Still, she recommends people estimate between $50,000 and $70,000 if they want to take on a similar project.
She also said that people who plan to take on similar projects should have a clear vision for their transformation.
"I think my best advice would be to go on Pinterest and take a look at all the elements that you want to have in your space, whether it's a bench seating area when you walk in or a special kind of tile or special window," she said. "When you hire a contractor, they're just carrying out your vision. If you don't go into it with the vision, then you're not going to get exactly what you want."
"The first time I renovated, I definitely didn't do enough research or planning, and there are things that I would do differently," Degreff said. "But with the arch, I 100% feel like it's exactly everything I wanted and hoped and dreamed."