Foyer Coat & Shoe Storage
We’ve got a 5′ wide by 16″ deep area we can use for storage in the foyer to the right of entry doors. Would like to use for closed storage for coats & shoes. The dilemma is how to closet it. Sliding doors may not look good in a brownstone foyer and hinged doors may…
We’ve got a 5′ wide by 16″ deep area we can use for storage in the foyer to the right of entry doors. Would like to use for closed storage for coats & shoes. The dilemma is how to closet it. Sliding doors may not look good in a brownstone foyer and hinged doors may interfere with the entry door. Also, anyone know of how to use such a shallow space (16″ deep) for hanging multiple coats as we’re a large family.
Thanks
Wow, these are great and terrific ideas. I am partial to either sliding doors or the curtain and would like to explore the sliding doors first. Can anyone recommend who could sketch out what it could look like so that it complements a nice 2nd entry door (that I also need to get)?
Thank you again
IKEA sells a pull out rod that is about 13″ before it is pulled out. The clothes hang on it one behind the other as described above. I have it in a very shallow closet. It is anchored to the shelf above.
With a 16″ depth, you can’t hang clothes the usual way on a rod from side to side. Any closet you build to hang coats this way will have to stick out quite a bit from the wall of the nook – is this what you are proposing to build? I don’t think so, and I wouldn’t recommend it.
You can, however, find an antique wardrobe, the kind that hangs coats on a rod one behind the other. One of these might stick out only a few inches (I was looking for wardrobes for me online this morning and saw a few like that were a few inches deeper than 16, but not as deep as a modern wardrobe made to hang coats side by side.) That might look ok, but I would find hanging coats used frequently in that manner (front to back) in a narrow wardrobe to be a pain.
I have a similar nook in my entry hallway, just slightly deeper, and I bought an 18″ deep antique (late 1880’s) walnut wardrobe (found online) to put in the space. Although it could have been used with a hanging rod across (the clothes would have been slightly slanted and the door would have hit them, something I don’t like – I don’t like to overly crowd my coats, as it wears the shoulders), I needed shelving space more than hanging space, so I outfitted it with shelves inside, and use it to store a lot of clothes and linens. I like that it has a mirror on the outside – that is nice in an entry hallway.
For hanging coats in such a space and not have them stick out beyond the 16″ you have, you could use a series of hooks. If you don’t want to hang nice coats on hooks, you can hang the hanger on hooks. There are a variety of hooks for this use. For closing it off – it would be easier to use, and more attractive, if you didn’t close the front, and just hang the coats you are usually wearing in it. You can use closed storage below for shoe cabinets. If you don’t like the look of coats on hooks, then you could hang a curtain in front. Use heavy fabric that hangs with a nice drape to it. Use a large curtain pole to hold the weight. And make it two curtains, that open in the middle, for easy access to coats.
Or, if you were building a closet over the width of the 5′ space, you could install a rod for hanging coats front to back on each side – if you left sufficient space in the middle to access the coats (space at least as wide as a coat on a hanger), you wouldn’t have the problem I have with narrow front-to-back wardrobes that don’t have space on the sides for getting coats in and out easily. You could leave 20″ or so each side for hanging coats, with 20″ clearance in the middle to take coats in an out easily. You could build shoe cubbies below. I think I’d do something like that with your space. If you don’t need all two rods for hanging coats, then on one side build 20″ wide shelves for shoes and hats, etc.
To close it off, you could either put a nice 2′ wood panel that went in front of the coats hanging on each rod, and leave the middle open for easy access. Antique wood doors from a wardrobe or other cabinet would look great. (This panel would be what you’d attach the rods to in the front – you need some sort of beam to attach rods to, whether vertical like a cover panel, or a horizontal beam for attaching the rod – I’d think vertical would be stronger and less likely to come loose with the weight of coats.) Or, the middle panel could be a 20″ hinged door that opened, with non-moving panels on each side of it. Done in nice wood, this would look great. If you had shelves on one side instead of a hanging rod, you could cover the whole space with a curtain, or use a panel in front of the hanging rod, and a 3′ curtain to cover the rest of the space – the open space for access and the shelves on the side.
There are also a variety of door options you could use that wouldn’t mess with your entry way hinges – you just build out a bit away from the entry door so you have room to mount a closet door. With the entry door right there though, I wouldn’t recommend regular hinged doors there, even if they’d fit, as they will get in the way of the entry door. (Unless it is an entry door you don’t use all the time.) Better to find some form of bifold or sliding door. You can have some made that look really good, and won’t look like Ikea sliding doors. I believe there are also bifold doors that are hinged only at one side.
Talk to local carpenters – they will have ideas. And look online for door option ideas – including window coverings, as many of them (not just curtains) could be used in this sort of space.
you could also use multiple pairs of narrower doors (5’=60″, 60″/6 doors=10″ per door) that would require less clearance. You could use a bunch of coat hooks on the back wall of the closet at staggered and on 2-3 levels inside or use one of those atelier-style big hooks that you can hang hangers on from back to front.
I’ve used sliding doors in foyers like yours. I have always designed them to have the correct amount of detail to appear as if they were originally there. I think this is key to the success of the finished product.I also have strategically placed hooks for larger coats that can not be hung on hangers in the available space.I agree that elfa is terrific and if any part of the system breaks, they will replace it.
i’ve used elfa (from containerstore) for all our closets. they have good ideas when you go to the store and have them ‘plan’ the closet for you. especially when your closet space is small you might look into doing more than just a rod, but have a small section for long coats, and a bigger section for shorter coats with shelves, drawers etc underneath. i believe our closet is 17″ deep and works for us – we used the 16″ elfa shelves and coats fit fine. as for the door – i guess curtains could work but i personally don’t like the look for foyer. i think you can get nice sliding doors that fit into a more traditional brownstone apt.
I’m not sure if this addresses your issues exactly, but I saw this photo/description yesterday as I was browsing an artichect’s site and thought it was a nice answer to foyer storage…
http://www.local-studios.com/media/gallery_slds_cu.php?return_URL=&SID=&G_ID=sldsKMd78Gh5R1juMZe&GI_ID=1rqwz9BB86fxCm1&GI_I=6&s=architecture
Hang a curtain instead of doors. We’ve done it with several of our closets (using nice heavy velvet curtains from Crate and Barrel), and it’s great not to have to worry about clearance for a door, plus be able to easily open them completely to see the whole closet. We used those sliding hospital-style curtain tracks mounted to the underside of the top of the doorframe, but I suppose you could easily put a curtain rod over the top as you would on a window.