Front Door Drop-off Zone and a Few Simple Updates

When you enter my house through the front door, there really isn't anywhere to put your coat/purse/bag.  I have a basket that you can dump your shoes into.  But nothing for hanging things.  The nearest "coat closet" is in the kitchen and remember, I just turned that into the tornado room.  There is still a hanging bar in there for coats- but it's not convenient to the front door whatsoever.  

I have this blank area at the bottom of the stairs that ends up being behind the door when it's opened.  Anything that I were to put there would have to almost be flush against the wall because if not, the door would hit it when opened or it would obstruct the area when coming down the stairs.  Building a bench or some sort of hall tree is completely out of the question.  But there is really no other place for coats as the other side walking in goes right into the dining room.  

I started thinking of creative ways to have a drop off zone behind the door on the blank wall that would blend in but not stick out too far obstructing anything.  I also wanted to use up a bit off scrap wood in my garage from the door trim project.  Each board that we used for the outside piece of the door trim, we had to cut a 3/4" x 1/4" strip off.  I had 21 of them taking space in my garage that I knew I'd be able to use for something.  

Queue my new drop-off zone.  

I started by grabbing all 21 pieces of wood and tossing them onto a make shift work bench.  Then I measured the area to see how tall I wanted it to be.  I decided on 64" for the slats and then I'd use a leftover piece of 1 X 3 to go across the top.  I went back into the garage, cut all of the slats down to size and began painting them the same color as the wall.  

Once I had a couple of coats on each piece and they were dry, I brought them into the dining room and started to nail them in.  I used a piece that was cut off to put in between the boards as my spacing guide.  

I debated stopping before the outlet but thought the area was too small.  So I added the remaining strips of wood and just cut out the area for the outlet.  Then I measured for the board to go on top, that the "hooks" would eventually go into to hang the coats and purses.  Once I had it cut and painted, I measured for 6 "hooks" evenly spaces, pre-drilled those holes and then also measured for where the wall studs were and pre-drilled those holes too.  

You can see I didn't go with normal coat hooks.  I just don't like the look of them and how they are curved and scroll-y.  Not my style. I also needed whatever I chose to be less than 2 1/2" (the height of the board they'd be going on).  I searched for way longer than I had anticipated for coat hooks and found these wood knobs.  They come with a double edged screw- one side to screw into the knob and the other to screw into the board. I then brought it over to the stairwell and installed.  I also used wood filler to fill the holes from the nail gun and where I counter-sunk the screws that went into the studs.  

Once the wood filler was dry, I sanded and painted over it for a clean look.  

This was a very simple project and took me the day, working off and on while paint and wood filler dried.  It's exactly what the area needed without taking up too much space to make it inconvenient to walk down the stairs or open the door.  Then when there is nothing on it, it blends very well into the wall since I used the same paint color.  

I also did a simple update in my master bedroom closet a while back.  Here is what the closet looked like when finished.  

I love the closet but it was giving me this "it needs something" vibe every time I walked into it.  It took me while to figure out what it was.  I didn't like the 6 gray baskets like that.  I wasn't replacing them by any means- it took me forever to find baskets to fit the spaces.  The handles on the baskets are on the sides and are a camel tan/brown color, which I liked.  But you can't see them.  

I went searching online for something to put on the fronts of the baskets and found simple leather handles.  

They aren't meant for a thin fabric material like what the baskets are.  More like drawer handles or something like that.  But I'm not using them to "pull" the baskets out so they'll be more decorative than functional.  The handles came with a brushed gold button that is just flat/round on the front but on the backside is where you'd put the screw through a cabinet- which is what leads me to believe they are more drawer or cabinet pulls.  

But whatever,  I'm using them the way I want to use them.  Clearly, the screw method wasn't going to work for me since the fabric is less than 1/16" and the spacing of the button to screw area was about an inch.  They would sag and probably eventually pull off of the fabric, tearing it more than likely.  So I had to figure a different way to adhere them.  

I went to the garage and grabbed a box cutter and my hot glue gun and got to work.  I measured where I wanted them on the face of the basket, made a small X with the box cutter, pushed the gold button through the leather handle and through the basket fabric and hot glued the shit out of it on the backside.  Those buttons aren't going anywhere.  

After the first one was done- I knew this was going to make all the difference.  Very simple, but put a little bit more character onto the front of the baskets so it wasn't just 6 blocks of gray stacked on top of one another.  Boring.  

I did the above steps on the remaining 5 baskets and below is the finished product.  So much better!

Final simple little update is to the laundry room.  When that was finished, it looked like this.  

And now it looks like this.  

No, the change is not the wall sign or the purse on the shelf.  It's the shelves themselves.  

When I cut the wood down to make the shelves, I installed them and washed my hands of them.  This particular piece of board was a shit piece, bought to make a scaffolding/plank type walkway for my dad to paint the upper part of my stairwell.  It was a 1X12X10 I believe.  But it was shit wood.  Splinters, rough cut.  Not sexy at all.  There was black paint on it from when it was upstairs and I laid the boards for the tv bookcase onto it while painting.  Being in the laundry room there was lint all over it that was difficult to clean and get off since it was rough wood.  

So I took them all down, brought them into the garage and sanded them with a 60 grit first to get all the chunky splintery pieces and paint off, then sanded them again with a 180 finer grit to make them smooth.  Once they were smooth, I stained them and then sealed them with the wipe on poly that I used for the kitchen table.  So if you look back at the two photos, you can see the first pic shows raw wood and the second shows it stained darker.  But now they'll be easier to clean/wipe off and I won't get a splinter every time I grab something on them.  Win win.  

And that is all.  Goodbye.