Reinterpreting the Hall Closet to a Mini Mudroom
One of my biggest gripes with our home is our coat closet. It is a very crucial area for us and all we get is a dinky closet.
My dreams are filled with large mudrooms…
My dreams are filled with large mudrooms…
So last year I thought about what I could do to maximize space in our tiny closet.
First and foremost, we took off the door. Didn’t help it’s cause when within an hour or two of arriving in our home (before the movers even showed up) a nice little hole was punched into it from the door to the garage opening and hitting it. Nice design there. {To see our home’s layout, scroll to the bottom of this post, although it’s backwards, but you’ll get the point of our awkward garage entry way.} I never filled in the hinge holes though, just painted them…can’t decide if it’s worth it or not…. Then I took down the standard white wire hanging shelf (that was too high for the kids to reach so their coats were constantly lining the floor), and I created 2 hanging hook racks for one side and searched high and low for the perfect shelf for the other side. Well, when the closet is only a little wider than the door frame itself, it was very difficult. So I made do with our old shoe rack and a couple baskets (one for hats, gloves and other *extras* and the other for the kids shoes). This design worked out alright. The girls could hang up and get their own coats and backpacks, but it still seemed like it could be better…especially when the kids dumped the basket to find their shoes…
{These were all taken in August, back before all the winter coats were pulled out.}
So again I contemplated what could be done.
And then I took the plunge. When to Home Depot and had some boards cut to size. Two 6 inchers for hanging racks, two 12 inchers for shoe shelves and four smaller 1x2s for the brackets or ledges that the shelves would rest on. Now, I’m fairly bright. I know that a 2×4 is not actually 2 inches by 4 inches. But for some reason, I didn’t think that that would apply to the 1×12. So when I got home with my boards all cut and ready to go, I realized that my brackets were about an inch longer than the shelves they were going to support… So I had to pullout my little handsaw and sawed off an inch on all those myself. Lesson learned. Next I pulled out some leftover primer and primed. Then I just used some of our glossy white trim touch up paint and did 2 coats. I also painted just the shelves with some Min-Wax protective stuff I picked up at Wal-mart on clearance. These would see more action, so I wanted to be sure they held up. For awhile at least. For the hanging rod rack, I pulled off the hooks from my other racks and attached them (plus an extra for each one) to my new ones to give 5 hooks for each one. Everything was ready to be hung. Almost. I wanted to paint the actual closet first. Since it sits directly across from my light/aqua blue with a chartreuse-like green accented bathroom/laundry room, I wanted to coordinate it somehow. So I was thinking a deep eggplant like purple… I know the *rules*, don’t paint small rooms dark, they’ll just look smaller…well, this wasn’t exactly a room…and I wanted a dark color to help hid scuffs…and the white of all the wood would stand out more…plus, it’s just a closet… So I took the risk and picked up a gallon of Behr Premium Plus Ultra paint plus primer. Now I’ve mentioned before, I usually head to Sherwin Williams for my paint, but I couldn’t pass this up. Why? This is why. 🙂
It didn’t even say what the color was, just a sample of it on top, but it was what I was looking for. (I constantly check the oops paints now;).) And after painting, I loved it. The paint itself was really nice to work with, was thick, and still low VOC,which is why I buy Sherwin Williams Harmony paint (no VOCs).
So with the closet painted, everything was ready to go in.
{I love looking at my little color scheme I’ve got now.}
Then I needed another basket for hats and whatnot… I kept looking for a natural tall round one. Finally found an oval one. Didn’t fit (but that was okay, because I found another use for it;). Then I remembered buying this bag thing (half off) at World Market. I loved it, but at the time didn’t really know what to use if for (too small for our recycling). Well, turned out it was the perfect color and size. Plus it had some of that green accent on it. Nice.
Joe makes fun of me because my favorite room in the house is the smallest *room*.
Honestly, it’s my favorite spot because it is the only room in the house that is completely finished.
And so far it’s working out great. Well, as great as a coat closet can serve as a mudroom for a family of 6;).
And just a little extra tidbit for you…I’m the only one in the family who doesn’t have a pair of Converse shoes…I didn’t realize this until I lined up everyone’s shoes (and Joe has 2 pairs, he just happened to be wearing them at the time).
More marvelous mudrooms and cool closets! 🙂
I was wondering if you could tell me how many inches do you have the rows of hooks space out.
The distance between the bottom row of hooks to the top row of hooks.
Love the closet thinking of doing something similar just don’t want to put the rows of hooks to close together.
Thanks
I would really measure the items you are hanging in the space to make sure they will work together. If the top things are hanging too far over the bottom hooks just rearrange.
We did this today! Love it! Thanks so much!
You’re welcome! Thanks for commenting!
Did this today! Love it so far! Thanks for the helpful hints.
You’re welcome! We’d love to have you share a pic with us over on Facebook 🙂 https://www.facebook.com/Remodelaholic
I’m so glad I found this on Pinterest. We are buying a house that, while it has an entryway, doesn’t seem to have the room to contain all of our stuff without looking like a hurricane passed through there. We do however have a hall closet that is similar in size to yours. Our kids (7 and 3) are too short to reach the current rod to hang up their coats.
Thanks for sharing your upgrade!
Glad you found us, Martha! We’d love to see pictures when you’re done!
Very clever and job well done Cass. I have the same problem with our very narrow entrance way (4 feet) and tiny closet. Can you please let me know what the dimensions of the closet are as I’m planning on giving this a go. Thanks.
Hi Marcy, I wish I could but this project is from one of our amazing guests, so it’s not my closet. But you can click over to her blog (linked toward the top of the post) and ask there for more information. Thanks for the commment!
Could you tell me, at max capacity, about how many coats this would fit? My husband is worried that we would lose space. It wouldn’t have to look pretty at max capacity, as we would keep the door on. We have about 10 coats hanging currently. Thanks so much. It looks beautiful!