Welcome Front Closet
We all have the closet that we don't know what to do with. You know, the one by the front door where coats are supposed to go, but they end up jam packed with the vacuum, dusting supplies, 100s of coats, and umbrellas. Our front hall closet had accordian doors and after redoing the floors, the last thing I wanted to do was drill into them so I could put an accordian door on them. So we looked at just buying new doors, that would have been easy, right? Well apparently our closet is not standard and what we ended up with was a closet that has no studs meaning there is no place to actually hang a door without it falling off.
After looking at some things online, I decided on a bench with some hooks, and thus was born one of the best home projects we have ever done. Not only did it just take an afternoon, but it is the first thing people see when they walk into our house. So here is what we did:
We went to the local lumber yard and picked up some 2x4s. We measured the space, found the studs and built a frame.
We then added supports using a Kreg Jig. We did two just to be safe. Then for the toppers, we used higher end wood which I painted before we put them down. Again, 2x4s work here. To space them apart, I took a dry-wall taping knife to make sure the boards were evenly apart. Pro Tip: Paint the closet before you build anything into it. Painting around the bench was a bit challenging.
So after some paint, the bench was done! And at 11PM at night we decided the right thing to do was stand on it together to ensure it would support weight on it: go big or go home right? And it did support us both so we considered that a success.
The next day after looking at the bench, I realized we needed something else, so we added another set of 2x4s and hung hooks from it so guests could come in an hang their coats, sit down and take off their shoes if they wanted to, and come into our home.
