Well over a year ago, I came up with a genius plan to rip out our two front hallway closets and part of a wall in order to custom-build some beautiful built-in cubbies with a nice bench and room for boots underneath,like this.   I realized recently that we are a few years from having the time or money to take on a project of that magnitude, so I compromised.  Here’s what we came up with to better-organize the area by our back door, which is the one we use most of the time.

Before: a rickety old laundry-drying rack holds lots of wet snowpants and jackets.  Also note the pile of shoes and boots and lack of rugs.

After: Adam stained up a couple of oak boards that were lying around in the garage and attached hooks.  I looked around for a week or two on Craigslist trying to find a bench that would work, but it just wasn’t happening so I went to Ikea.  This bench (from the bathroom department) is absolutely perfect for our needs.  This corner isn’t quite the beautiful, built-in oak system I dreamed of, but it will definitely get us by until we have a little more time/money for such projects.

Added bonus: the kids love hanging up their coats and snowpants on their very own hooks.  Also: I purposely picked small, cheap rugs because our dog absolutely LOVES to throw up on rugs.  These can easily be thrown in the wash.