30.5.13

If The Shoe Fits...

 
As we become better acquainted with our new/old house, we are constantly evaluating our "To Do" list.  Our priorities change as we see which updates would make a bigger difference to us right away and we compare them against our budget.

While we would love to enclose the porch in order to have a mudroom, this is just not a priority to us right now.  For now, we are keeping coats in the upstairs closet, but our narrow entrance hallway does not offer any room for shoes.


Before opting to build something, I checked Ikea to see if they had a cheaper and easier option.  They had some great solutions which are only 7" deep and I loved that they would still leave our hallway pretty open.  Unfortunately, Corey's work boots are HUGE and would never fit in one of the dainty storage solutions.  Look at his massive boots next to my old size 7 Birkenstocks.


We opted for the Ikea Bissa storage unit, which is a whopping 11" deep.  Sometimes function trumps fashion.  I do like that it has room for Corey's shoes, my shoes and even Barkley's coats, leash and spare bags.
At $39.99, it was cheap... even by Ikea standards.  But just because we're buying Ikea, doesn't mean it needs to look like we're buying Ikea, so we decided to personalize it a little.

Before we assembled the shelf, we sanded and spray painted it white to give it a more matte finish.


Then we used painter's tape to make a geometric pattern along the edges and covered everything else.


Tip: We sprayed another layer of our base coat (white) to allow for cleaner edges once the tape was pulled.


 Then, we used black spray paint over the pattern.


We removed the tape while the black paint was still a little tacky.  It came out pretty well but not perfect so I used a Q-tip for some touch ups.  What do you think of our design?


Nothing transforms a piece of furniture more than custom hardware.  Look that these little vintage pulls I found on ebay.


Cute, right?  We marked the screw holes by tracing directly from the pull, onto blue tape.  We then used this as a template to line up on the actual drawer front.


Corey screwed the pulls in while I was working on something else one night and he surprised me with the finished product.  Voila!


Unfortunately, it leaned a bit forward and didn't sit flush against our wall due to the tall baseboards.  Since we already bought the 11" deep version instead of the 7", we decided that we needed all the space we could get.  We ended up buying some brackets so that we could mount it against the wall. 

It still eats into our hall space a little, but something mounted always seems to feel less imposing than if it were actually taking up precious floor real estate.  Barkley decided to see what all the fuss was about...


Now, we each get a drawer (that's right, Barkley too!) and I can't believe how much this thing holds!

 
 

We have yet to paint baseboards, walls, change the light switch or hang any art so I can hardly post a "before and after" for the hallway.  Still, perhaps it's time for "before and during" pictures.



And just like that, our new/old house is beginning to feel like home.

What do you do for storage in your home?  We're all ears!

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