Front Entry Closet Makeover

When we decided to build our home, 20 years ago, we (I) haha, fell in love with the design that the builder came up with for the outside. (Because, lets face it, my husband would have been happy with a square room with a bed on one side and a bathroom on the other) his words and I wish I was kidding. Haha. We then reconfigured the inside floorplan to match what the carpenter designed for the outside, making the main entryway smack dab in the middle of the house. I loved the way the home looked on the outside, but, in hindsight, it takes up a large portion of what could have been more “living” space of our home and when you walk in the front door you get a view of the kitchen. Now would I do this again? No! Haha. But wayyyy back then it was a decision we (I) made, so I lived with it.

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Driftwood Garland https://amzn.to/2TIvkG4 (Mine is from Home Sense from several years ago but I found one on Amazon)

Similar rug https://amzn.to/3gtAtMa (Mine is no longer available but this is very similar)

Dog treat jar https://amzn.to/2zswKOo https://amzn.to/2zswSNS (This one is similar)

Wicker Basket https://amzn.to/3etKSWu

This decision was one I soon regretted. Haha. Way back….before a global pandemic, when people were allowed to visit one another, and more than one person came in the front door at a time, the small space would quickly became very cramped. This part wasn’t too hard to put up with as it was only an issue when we had company coming, but the part that did always bother me was our very hard to find anything in, front closet!

For years I avoided looking for things in the cramped closet, now, it was really just a normal closet (I forgot to take before pictures), with a bifold door and a rod with a shelf at the top, that was it. It wasn’t horrible, I just couldn’t get it to look and feel like I wanted a front closet to look like (welcoming, ease of locating items, ease of putting items away, lots of space) I tried to organize it with shoe racks and baskets, but still avoided it. It was like a black hole of old shoes and old potatoes (sounds appealing) haha. For years I dreamt up ways to make the front entry more like a “mud room” and ways to make the closet function better.

Fast forward to 2019 when the builder of our home was here giving us a new front porch (post on that some day in the future ;)) when I quickly decided on a simple fix for the closet and added it to his to do list. haha.

A barn style sliding door was what I ended up deciding. It was the look I wanted, didn’t require much “reno”. There was lots of wall space to the right of the closet where the door track needed to be installed, and when the door was open it meant that the entirety of the closet could be viewed without it feeling like I was sticking my head into the earlier mentioned black hole, and then not being surprized at maybe finding one old shoe insole and an old potato with roots growing longer than my arm and last years tulip bulbs that I never did plant. It only meant removing one small section of the radiator for the furnace that would have been in the way of the door opening, (our home is not big and there are lots of other radiators in the other areas of the open space surrounding the entry to keep the house warm) so we (I ;)) felt we didn’t need it. It also only required a small section of the closet door frame to need to be removed. This left an area of the closet with no flooring, just the plywood underfloor but it’s not noticeable when the door is closed and at some point in the near future, the tile will be replaced, it’s old and there are a couple of tiles that have large cracks in them. There was no other reno’s to the space besides the closet 🙂

It did take the carpenter(s) the better part of a day to finish the entirety of the project. The door itself is wider than a standard size barn door so the carpenter made this custom size for us. I told him a basic idea of what I wanted and let him do his creative thing. He brought it back painted and everything 😉 .

Because the width of the door was a custom size, we needed to purchase 2 sliding door tracks, and he used part of the second one to make it long enough to support the door.

Sliding door hardware https://amzn.to/2TLoVtO (We have 2 of the tracks here to make it long enough to accommodate the door)

Floor Guide https://amzn.to/36yyi5s (Needed to stop the bottom of the door from swinging)

I knew I wanted lots of shelf options inside, with areas to store boots of different heights, some baskets for hats and miscelanius items, off season items and also lots of space to store my husbands hoodies, hat and coat addictions (insert eyeroll) He’s a keeper so I put up with it. Haha.

We measured the tallest boots, to ensure they would fit before deciding on the height and size of any shelves, made sure there was a small section of a rod for some hanging items and then just added lots of shelves. I painted the visible wall at the back of the closet in a fresh white/grey color. There was new trim added around the frame, and along the floor where the radiator was removed so that needed to be painted as well, but unless you look really close, you wouldn’t know it is slightly different than the original. Removing a section of the radiator also meant it left 2 small round holes in the floor. They got filled with a piece of wood cut to fit and in a color as close to the flooring color as the carpenter could make. This part is noticeable, but, as with the tile in the entry, this flooring will be replaced in the near future as well.

It makes the front entry look larger and brighter. The old bifold door, when opened took up a lot of space and was not very functional. It is SO much nicer to look for things in here than it was before. The actual size of the closet did not change, but being able to open the door fully, and the amount of light that can enter it because of that reason, makes it a space that I don’t dread looking for things in, or putting then away into.