Coat Closet Renovation

Our house has no formal coat closet rather there is a storage space underneath our stairs. We used it "as is" for about a year but the space drove me crazy because it was actually a large space but not being used effectively or to it's full potential. So we decided to give it a makeover in order to hopefully gain some more storage space. 

The Before: 

So before we renovated it there were several aspects of this space that drove me crazy:

 1. Accordion doors- these doors stuck out into an already narrow hallway. We removed these doors within the first week of moving in 

2. Pull chain light- there was a light in the closet but it was on a pull chain. This resulted in us either being to lazy to turn it on or turning it on and then leaving it on all day

3. Carpet flooring to hide the crawl space access- my husband removed the carpet before I could get these pictures but it was nasty to say the least. It also drove me crazy that you had to remove everything in the closet to get crawl space access 

4. One small wire shelf for coat storage. Wire closet shelving is the bane of my existence. Yes it's cheap but you can't hang as much on it as you can a simple rod. Plus it's super hard to clean and collects dust like crazy. 

Step 1: Replace the door 

So I did a whole separate blog post on this but we built and installed a barn door for this closet. We did this a few months before we actually renovated the closet itself.  This majorly helped with being able to hide our coats/shoes 

Blogpost: https://craftytravelgirl.blogspot.com/2022/02/how-to-build-and-install-modern-barn.html

Step 2: Clean, Wallpaper and Paint 

So the walls had probably never been painted since the house was built to we decided to clean everything really well. Because I'm a nerd and a Harry Potter fan I decided to get Harry Potter themed wall paper to put on the main walls in the closet (because it's the Harry Potter space-get it?) I am usually very anti-wallpaper due to being forced to remove so much of it during my childhood but I figured this was a small space and if someone else didn't like it then it wasn't a big space and it wouldn't make or break selling the house down the line. I will probably never wallpaper again through- it was kind a of a huge pain and my husband was not happy to help me. Still I loved the way it turned out 

We applied the wall paper to the two main walls- I only bought one roll of the stuff- it was kind of expensive and I didn't want to spend a ton on a closet. Plus I actually think that it would've been to busy to have the wall paper on the walls. After the wall paper was applied I painted the rest of the walls "repose gray" mostly because I wanted a neutral gray that went with the rest of the house and I part of a gallon of this color handy. 

 

Step 3 Replace the light 

So after a lot of researching I was able to find a light that was hardwired motion sensor. I liked this idea because the light would turn on when we needed to see in the closet but turn off after 30 seconds of no movement so that way it wasn't left on all the time. The sensor is pretty sensitive- it turns on if we walk past the closet so it encourages us to keep the door closed when not in use 

Step 4: Replace the floor. 

I bought some gray waterproof vinyl plank floor on sale a few months ago specifically for this area. Living in the PNW I wanted to be able to put wet shoes in the closet without having to worry about the floor. We found this vinyl plank very easy to work with- we had never put in vinyl before. It is technically a floating floor but we did use the nail gun to secure it to floor in the corners. We laid the floor around the opening for the crawl space and then laid the flooring on the trap door to the crawl space. This was you don't have to take everything out of the closet to get into the crawl space like you did previously. We purchased a recessed handle off Amazon to make it easier to lift up the trap door to the crawl space. We also added base trim in the closet because we had left over scrap pieces from our previous projects and I just think it gives it a nice finished look even if it is a closet and not that big of deal 

Step 5: Making the space functional 

We purchased a white closet rod and shelf- we tried to make it as long as possible for the space. There still isn't a ton a space to hang coats but I was able to fit more coats than with the previous wire shelf. We also purchased a cube organizer to go in the corner of the closet. This is where we store all of our winter stuff, some of our hiking supplies and fancy/not super frequently used shoes. Then we purchased multiple coat hooks and hung them around the space. This helped us be able to hang backpacks, our diaper bag and our work bags so that way we have a specific place for them and they don't end up on the kitchen table. 

And that's it! Overall I'm very happy with how we used the space- we can store a lot more in here. Plus it's a lot easier to run a vacuum through it rather than try to vacuum the ugly carpet. I would've liked to have a longer rod for hanging coats but that just wasn't in the cards. Instead we hang our super heavy winter coats in an upstairs closet (because really we only use those a few times a year so it's not that big of a deal)