Sunday, December 2, 2012

A Coat Closet Remodel

We have a teeny-tiny, oddly-shaped coat closet near our front door. Think a triangle that you can just barely stand in upright. It had a wire shelf with a bar for hanging coats about two feet long. The bar went from the front of the closet to the back (rather than horizontally, so that hangers and coats in the front would obscure the ones farther back making them inaccessible). The bottom of the closet was a foot-high pile of shoes - some of which my children hadn't been able to wear for at least two years.

I detested going in the closet. It was almost unusable. I hated digging in an old pile of dirty shoes for the one pair I needed. I started having the children put their coats on a nearby seat instead of in the closet and their shoes in the hall so I could find them quickly. This just contributed to clutter. Not an ideal solution.

I came up with an ideal solution. Tear it all out and have my husband install hook style coat racks on the walls of the closet at varying heights for shoes and coats. It wasn't supposed to take more than half an our to tear out the old stuff and stick in the new ones....

As usual I vastly underestimated. It took two hours just to sort through the years of stuff we had crammed in there. Then coat racks were prohibitively expensive. Who knew those things cost $30 each? So my husband bought individual hooks and boards at a home improvement store and made his own. That took... well... a long time. Several hours at least. And then there was something about finding studs that I didn't pay a lot of attention to. I was busy entertaining children.

So, it is only half done. We ran out of screws, and hooks, and boards. But this is what it looks like so far. I LOVE it. It makes me very happy. The children love it. We all actually enjoy hanging up our coats and shoes when we come in the house. Eventually the baskets for hats and mittens will be hanging on the wall instead of on the floor, but it a wonderful, small-child friendly solution to a coat closet. I highly recommend it.

(The picture just shows the bottom half of the closet, but the top has another row of similar hooks. There will be an additional row of shoe hooks on the left below the current row and right below the children's coats. The baskets for hats/scarves/mittens will go above the children's coat hooks on the right.)

3 comments:

  1. You can also put some hooks on the back of the door for even more storage! Great use of pretty much wasted space! Nice job!

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  2. We have the EXACT same closet! Except our coat rack does go horizontally, not back to front like yours. It is also piled w/ shoes.. and I hate it! We put a short three shelf metal wire shoe rack in the bottom (left side in your photo) and hung a few hooks on the sides, but not like you have done. My question is what to do with the top shelf (above the coats) and the three feet of wasted space above that odd shaped shelf?

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  3. Hi, there. I am Tom Neil and I wish to describe how life had been for my younger brother living with schizophrenia and how he had been permanently able to overcome this debilitating disease via a naturopathic, herbal method.

    Maicon - my kid brother was twenty years old when he was brought to the emergency room by the campus police of the college from which he had been suspended several months ago. A professor had called and reported that he had walked into his classroom, accused him of taking his tuition money, and refused to leave.

    Although he had much academic success as a teenager, his behavior had become increasingly odd during the past year. He quit seeing his friends and no longer seemed to care about his appearance or social pursuits. He started up wearing the same dress each day and rarely bathed. He lived with several family members but rarely spoke to any of them. When he did talk to them, he said he had found clues that his college was just a front for an organized crime operation. He had been suspended from college because of missing many classes. My sister said that she had often seen him mumbling quietly to himself and at times he seemed to be talking to people who were not there. He would emerge from my room and ask my family to be quiet even when they were not making any noise.

    My father and sister told the staff that Maicon's great-grandmother had had a serious illness and had lived for 30 years in a state hospital, which they believed was a mental hospital. Our mother left the family when Maicon was very young. She has been out of touch with us, and they thought she might have been treated for mental health problems.

    Maicon agreed to sign himself into the psychiatric unit for treatment. The whole family except I had agreed to have Maicon transferred to a mental asylum. I knew inwardly there was still some plausible means by which my kid brother could overcome this condition. I knew botanical means of treatment will be more favorable than any other type of treatment, and as such, I had taken a keen interest in the research of naturopathic alternative measures suitable for the treatment of schizophrenia. I had pleaded for some little patience from the family in the delay of the transfer, I was looking forward to proving a point to the entire family, of a positive botanical remedy for this condition.

    It was during my ceaseless search on the internet I had been fortunate enough to come across Dr. Utu Herbal Cure: an African herbalist and witch doctor whose professional works had majored on the eradication of certain viral conditions, especially schizophrenia, ( improving the memory capacity positively), via a traditional, naturopathic process and distinguished diet plan. It was by the administration of this herbal specialist that my brother had been able to improve his condition for better.

    Before the naturopathic remedy - Maicon's story had reflected a common case, in which a high-functioning young adult goes through a major decline in day-to-day skills. Although family and friends may feel this is a loss of the person they knew, the illness can be treated and a good outcome is possible.

    My brother Maicon is just like many other patients out there suffering from this disease. Although he was able to overcome this condition via a naturopathic herbal remedy administered by this African herbal physician and saved completely thus, rekindling the lost joy which had been experienced by the family members.

    I wish to use this opportunity to reach across to anyone who may happen to be diagnosed with this disastrous condition to spread the hope of an everlasting herbal remedy that is capable of imposing a permanent end to this disease.

    For more information concerning this naturopathic herbal remedy, feel free to contact this African herbal practitioner via email:
    drutuherbalcure@gmail.com

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