The Coat Rack And Shoe Bench: Nine Months Later

It’s nine months (to the day!) since I posted about the coat rack and bench that we made for our foyer:

A couple of people have asked me if it looks the same now as it did back then. Hahahahahahahaha! It does not. (Really, I’d feel pretty silly if we made that big old coat rack with all those hooks and then just kept one baby jacket on it).

So I thought now, in the aftermath of the coldest week in twenty years in Georgia, would be a good time to check in and see how it’s holding up. Keeping it real, as the young folks say.

I spent, literally, less than thirty seconds hanging a couple of coats that had been tossed on the bench and leaning Ari’s bag neatly against the wall, but other than that this is how the coat rack actually looks in real life on a typical winter day around here:

bench-baskets1

Definitely crowded, but not a complete disaster. When we have people coming over, I take 5 or 10 minutes to neaten everything up and pare it down to one coat per family member. But overall I’m pretty happy with how contained it’s keeping all the coats, dog leashes, shoes, diaper bags, baby carriers, etc. for our coat closet-less family of six people + three dogs.

And! We finally have baskets to replace the dollar store dishpans! It took me a very long time to realize that the odds of finding four matching baskets that I liked, just the right size for the space at the thrift store were quite low. But I finally accepted this, sucked it up, and ordered these Spectrum wire storage baskets from Amazon. They were around $13 each, so way more than $4, but also way better than my dishpans. I like that they’re wire, so all the shoe dirt will fall onto the floor and get vacuumed up instead of collecting in the basket. And the bench is stained instead of painted, so I don’t need to worry about them chipping paint off.

bench-baskets2

Oh, look, I should have swept the floor under the bench before I took the picture. Keeping it REAL!

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Comments

The Coat Rack And Shoe Bench: Nine Months Later — 15 Comments

  1. I love the wire baskets. We are using the fabric cube things, and find they are all overflowing this time of year. Do you have a second set to swap out for summer stuff?

  2. No, you shouldn’t have swept under the bench. It would have made me feel like I’m the only person with dust bunnies under and behind the shoe rack. And that would have made me feel uncomfortable.

    (I hope, dust bunny is really a term that gets used? The dictionary told me so. We call them “wool mice” here… ;))

    Love, Midsommarflicka

  3. Love that you posted this. They still look great with all those coats – being so useful! My poor hooks look worse than this, but at least tehy are being used. Maybe I’ll share them someday.

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