The New Coat Rack

Before the redo, we would come through the playroom and up the stairs to the shoe rack at the front door. This naturally means that we track all the pine needles across the playroom, where the kids play on the floor, and up the stairs. Yeah, not the smartest set up. The kids get poked by the pine needles and its nearly impossible to vacuum them off the stairs. So I came up with a plan. Why not clear out one corner of the room and build a shoe rack. This way we only track in the pine needles about a foot in the door.

I wanted to use the bead board and build a nice frame around it and add the hooks, but in the end Robert wanted something super simple. I had to agree it wasn't working really well to use the bead board. So that part got nixed. What we came up with is very simple, but quite nice for the kids to be able to hang their own coats up.

I also built a shoe rack to match in the corner. Again, just a simple frame up with simple trim work. My son helped me paint it white to match. The one thing I did like was NOT using coat hooks. I was at Lowe's like always and I realized that cabinet handles would work for the jackets just as well and would look nicer. I bought one of those cheap packs of cabinets pulls. I think it was.....a pack of 10 for 15 bucks or something like that. I bought 2, attached them to the wood and then attached the wood to the wall (through the stud for stability).

The kids like that they can reach their level of hooks easily and I like that they look schnazzy even when there is no coats hanging up. Here is the before, during and final design I built. I promise I have since painted the shoe rack white to match. For some reason I didn't take a picture of it. We have also moved around the desks since the "before" picture below. The larger desk is on the opposite wall, the bookshelves are now on this wall on either side of the white desk. The brown desk on the left is sold and gone. It really balanced it out and made the blue, white and brown scheme really work here.

Here is the before.....

Yup, my daughter loves to climb on the shoe rack. LOL.

Amd the nearly finished corner.

And a close-up of the cabinet handles I used. It still makes me smile to hang up a jacket when I get home.

Stay Tuned for The NEXT project room...The Dining Room!