Closet Turned Mudroom

We have a moderately sized entryway closet. The closet had bi-fold doors that were barely on the hinges and the interior made no sense. The inside of the closet consisted of dusty wire shoe racks that barely fit our shoes, shelves that were too narrow to store anything of value and a closet rod that was too low to hold our coats.

My husband is always on the go with a giant gym bag, sneakers and a jacket. He couldn't use the closet and so he ended up storing his gear in our laundry closet or own our kitchen island (both places drove me crazy).

I came up with a storage solution that would make life convenient for him (his gym bag would finally find a permanent home) and less nerve wracking for me (I wouldn't have to twitch when eyeing his work gear on the island or on top of the washer).

I took off the bi-fold closet doors and gutted the interior. I left the top shelf in there and added one more below it and used extra plywood to make partitions. I then added trim from a prior project and painted the shelves and partitions black so it would look like one built-in piece.

For storage, I built a bench that was 24 inches in height and 45 inches in width.  The top of the bench was on hinges to provide storage space. If needed, we could sit on it to put on our shoes but the bench was deep enough to store my husband's gym bag, laptop bag, and shoes.  Since my husband always comes home with dirty clothes (he's a personal trainer and goes through shorts, socks and gym towels like crazy), I added added a partition in the bench that would devote 15 inches to hamper space.

We have a lot of parties and were never able to use the closet to store our guests' coats and bags (it would get lost in the chaos). To solve this, I added 8 coat hooks. The coat hooks will make it easy for guests to store their belongings during parties and find on their way out. For a finished look, I added white bead board.

Here are some pictures of the finished project.

In progress

Finished! The coat hooks are also great for hanging Christmas stockings. My husband is getting ready for Christmas :-)