Organized Coat Storage for a Small Coat Closet

Get creative with organized coat storage and declutter your small coat closet. Find out how to make a mini mudroom in this post!

When we moved into our house over 6 years ago, I put everything where it “should” be. I put my coat in the coat closet. I put sweets and dry goods in the pantry. I filled the garage and basement storage areas with Rubbermaid containers with all the extra junk. I followed the “rules” of the house.

However, the longer we live here, the more we realize that the functions assigned to an area do not always work optimally. Try to make our not-so-big house work in the best possible way for us.

This has never been more noticeable than when I started remodeling my kitchen. We found ourselves experiencing a bit of a snowball effect when trying to find the best placement for everything. (Isn’t that what happens in projects all the time?!)

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Rethinking the kitchen and entryway space

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It all started with the pantry. When we wanted more storage and couldn’t include taller cabinets, we started to get more creative with areas closer to the kitchen, and the ‘kitchen reno’ became a full front of house remodel. Oops.

I showed this diagram a few days ago when I shared my powder room refresh, but just in case, here’s the layout I’m working on.

To create the pantry space we needed, we turned our entry coat closet into a new pantry. That left a lot of homeless coats and the old pantry (very small) completely empty.

I had no problem sacrificing coat storage for this space in favor of pantry storage. Especially since we enter our homes 99% of the time through the garage instead of the front door.we still had to something But with the coat, that’s where the creativity came from.

I wanted to make sure I had at least a little bit of coat storage on the main floor in case I ran out of front doors for any reason or guests came over, so I decided to turn my old pantry into a small mini mad Room!

Turn a small pantry into a mini mudroom

Here’s how Kitchen Reno’s first old pantry got started.

It was pretty organized (thanks to the hidden overflow area that hid the rest of the junk!). However, the shelves were so shallow that no matter how many times I rearranged and moved them, they weren’t going to meet my needs as my only pantry space.

So, I made a space to remove the existing shelf and storage the coat. Donnie cut some of his cheap MDF 1x4s down to fit the space. And so that the transition between the wall and the MDF was not abrupt, he used a miter saw to cut the edge of the board at a 45 degree angle.

He used a brad nailer to set up two rows of 1x4s in a small corner and added some hooks.

This small nook size actually made it perfect. The boys have hooks on their level so they can easily hang items, and Donny and I can store things in the top row.

We also added a small basket at the bottom to store all the shoes that are always floating in the entryway or living room. 🙂

But what about the rest of the coat? Hmm, don’t worry. I made those plans too. 🙂 When you walk into the basement from the garage, you happen to have a nook under the stairs that’s the perfect size for a coat rod!

This is how we get in and out of the house most of the time, so it makes a lot of sense to keep most of our coats and boots in this area. part of the house. This will save you a lot of money on snow removal costs this winter.

Organizing a Small Coat Closet: Final Thoughts

I’m totally pissed that it took me 6 years of living in this house to come up with this solution. It makes a lot more sense than our previous setup, and is already more functional for our family.

This large closet swap really helped me understand that just because a space is “supposed” to be used for one purpose doesn’t mean it works best that way. It was helpful. I definitely think outside the box when it comes to organizing spaces moving forward!

Now that the pantry is organized and the coat is back home again, there are a few details that need to be finalized in the kitchen before it’s finished.

Coat Storage Ideas: Frequently Asked Questions

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Have you ever gotten creative to make your home space more functional?

We will update again soon! A nice day!

This post contains affiliate links. See my disclosure here for more details.