A Little Closet Renovation

We have this little closet right behind our front door in our living room. In order to get into the closet most days of the year, you first have to shut the front door in order to open the closet door (see the two doors?). Not very convienent. I've had a pipe dream of tearing out the closet and making a locker system in this area but knew that probably wouldn't happen. A few weeks ago Teresa Dodge stopped by and she mentioned taking the hanging rod out of the closet and making the closet into a locker. What a fabulous idea!

Here is the closet "before:"

And here is our new and much improved locker space:

I am in love with this space! For one, I love the way it looks. For two, hooks are just a much better way of hanging stuff (especially when you have kids and bags).

The first thing we did was take the door off. Since we keep our front door open most days out of the year (unless it is blistery cold out!), it covers up the closet anyway. And when the front door is shut, I don't mind at all being able to see into the closet/locker because it looks great now.

After taking the hanging rod and hardware down, I painted the closet the same dark grey color as our kitchen. We then added a second shelf above the existing shelf to make use of the height in the closet.

I got the galvanized steel buckets at Lowe's for $8 each. Below is a close up of the five big hooks I used on the back wall. They are pretty basic, but I love the way they look.I like to keep gum, water bottles and other things we need when we are running out the door in the closet, so therefore I went looking for containers to hang on the wall. I found the small rectangular galvanized steel flower planters at JoAnn's Fabric for $3 each.

I also wanted more hooks lower for easy kid-access and to hang Jason's raquetball racquet, umbrellas, bags, etc.

I wasn't excited about using the boring white shoe rack until I got the big galvanized steel bucket ($10 at Lowes). It fits perfect, jazzes up the white shoe rack and is great to throw Abram's shoes in.

And here it is in its fully-functioning capacity. Since it is summer, it is filled with the swimming bag, hats, bubbles, a picnic mat, etc. I don't have much in the buckets right now, but I'm sure that will change when it is time for hats and gloves.

All-in-all, this was a pretty easy project. It was a bit time consuming since I put all the hooks in separately (instead of buying a set of hooks on a board) and I put anchors in before all the screws for the hooks (38 screws and anchors total!). It was worth it!