Did I disappear? Yes, yes I did! Two weeks ago I went live on Instagram with two fellow creators, Sadia from @thehomethatsows and T. Cheri from @shemovespurpose to discuss my DIY journey. Covering past projects, future projects and a bunch of other fun topics, and personally considered that my blog post for the week. You can watch the discussion for yourself on my Instagram page or from either of their accounts. But I'm back again with my most recent project finish and post birthday celebration!
First, I think I'm addicted to closet makeovers. Can you blame me though? I mean I'm getting really good at this! This closet is one of the first things you see walking into my home. I can't tell you how many times this bifold door has been broken exposing my clutter to guests and passerbyers. Shameful I know! No one really puts their coats there but me and it's usually the coat I walk my dog in during the cold months, dog food and his essentials. Knowing that, is what inspired the design. It's not necessarily enough space to call it a mud room but the functionality of it is one in the same. That is -- quick on the go storage for your comings and going's. The biggest accomplishment for me is hidden storage and still appearing as intended. The structure is supported solely by the base and not so much the walls because of the size and shape of the space (smaller entry, wider internal space. I started from the bottom and worked my way up. Ultimately, this was a figure it out as I go plan with adjustments along the way. I knew I wanted a drawer, bench, cabinet style door, and open shelf storage.
The drawer:
The inside of the closet is wider than the opening of the closet so I had to keep that in mind to minimize the amount of dead and unusable space. The drawer will be the same size as the door opening which is 24 inches taking into consideration the thickness of the frame wood, which was a 2 x 4" piece of wood stud. The height is 26 inches and I wanted it a little bit higher so sitting on the bench and getting up wouldn't be a terrible struggle when putting on shoes. The drawer depth is 16 inches and I used 14 inch drawer slides. The drawer will be used for my dogs food container, his leashes and muzzles. Behind the drawer is where I intended to have the extra storage needed for luggage and whatever else needs to be there.
The storage:
Initially, I wanted the storage to be a hidden door in the seating area only. But thankfully those plans had to be changed because the finished product offers so much more storage space than I even knew possible for this closet. After adding the base structure for the drawer space and storage, I was not left with very much space to accommodate luggage. So I decided to essentially give a Cabinet style look to the space. The total depth on one side of the closet is 39 inches (the other 32"). After using 16 inches for the drawer I used the remaining space, in addition to 48 inches in height made for a reasonably sized storage space. I created a custom door for the cabinet and found a coat rack on Amazon that was modern and still maintained the secret storage idea of the space. The cabinet and drawer face styles are shaker style. Once the cabinet storage was complete, there was still space above that can be used for some sort of cube storage and additional space for any miscellaneous items. With the difference in the width of the door frame and the internal closet space I had to build the box and everything else inside the closet because I wouldn't have been able to fit something premade into the space.
The bench:
This isn't so much a statement portion more like the last little finishing touch, nothing too special because let's be honest, I'm not gonna sit here and read a book or do anything of real purpose there. But it does come in handy to sit and put on shoes before walking out the door, or vice versa. I do think in the near future I will add fabric to make it look more like a cushion rather than a plank of wood and quite possibly utilize the empty space behind the small wall partition to put umbrellas so that they have a home as well. I did make it a point to maintain access in the space should I want to make changes in the future that won't require demolishing any part of the space.
To finish off the space I painted the area black with leftover paint from my son's bedroom project. (Which reminds me I may have missed that...oops!) The color is Black by Behr in a matte finish. The drawer hardware is from Home Depot and had to spray paint for the color I wanted. Black wasn't available in store and I didn't want to wait to order them. I spray painted black with Behr paint and primer spray paint. I did have issues with the drawer hardware not having the correct size screws included in the packaging, which is quite crazy to me. But I was able to make it work using screws that I had on hand. Overall, this was a very quick and fairly easy project to complete and hope once I work on the entire entry that this addition along with the console table that I previously built really elevate the space and give it that wow factor when you walk through the door.
Final tour of the space below!