COAT CLOSET MAKEOVER

I bumped into my neighbor Lani at the grocery store the other day.  She was telling me all about what they'd done with their coat closet.  The thing is, Lani has the exact same house plan I do, so I figured what worked for her would work for me too.

I've never been so excited about a home improvement project in my life.  Actually, I've never been excited about a home improvement project period.

In fact, I was so excited to get started that I forgot to take a before picture.  Let me conjure up an image in your mind.  First, it's important to remember that no child under the age of 18 will use a hanger voluntarily.  Second, you can't hang backpacks, purses, umbrellas, etc. on hangers.  Third, even the coats that do get hung on hangers tend to slide off.  Basically, hangers are useless in a coat closet situation when children are present in the home.  All of our backpacks and half of our coats were constantly piled on the floor.  The rest of the coats were jammed together haphazardly on a random assortment of hangers.  In short, our coat closet was a mess.

And all it took to fix it was a few pre-painted 1x4 boards and an assortment of hooks and screws.....

Although I prefer wooden shelving, the wire shelving came with the house, and because we'd be shutting the closet door, I didn't see any reason to make the project more difficult or expensive.  We did have to move the top shelve up several inches to allow for 2 rows of hooks, and we added an additional shelf on the bottom for shoes.  We don't wear shoes in the house--a custom we adopted from  my Canadian husband--and all of our shoes seem to end up in the garage, since that's the way we always enter and exit.

I am so excited to have place for our shoes just inside the door!  I can't tell you how many times I've nearly tossed a bag of groceries tripping over shoes to get into the house.

Up top, we added some baskets to hold our hats, scarves, mittens, and re-usable shopping bags.

We found the hooks at Hobby Lobby for around $2 a piece (at 50% off), which was far cheaper than anywhere else. Everything else was purchased at Home Depot. The entire project cost about $80.  You are going to need a saw of some kind (although ours isn't much, I assure you) to cut your wood.  A drill will come in handy too, as will a level, so if you don't have some basic tools, I suggest borrowing them from your neighbor!

I love how this weekend project really opened up the space in our tiny closet and made it so much more functional.

Now, I better get busy hanging stuff up in my new coat closet while I've still got time.  Because Ty Pennington is probably going to show up on my doorstep any minute now to offer me a job on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.