Hall Closet Redo

A few months ago I finally came clean and told Craig that I hated our hall closet.  We'd left it exactly as it was when we bought the home and just put our stuff in there and this is what it looked like - a complete mess:

Since my husband is a problem solver, he read my confession as a plea and offered to redo the closet with me.  We imagined and discussed various set-ups with the premise, as always, that form must follow function and finances, and then decided that the existing shelves really did need to come out.  What we found behind them was a little gross, so we sanded and repainted the entire closet.

A clean slate:

Our plan A failed once I saw it in the space, so we went back to the drawing board and thought up something even better.  Tah-dah, I am quite happy with how it all came together.

The kids' backpacks go on the floor beneath the lowest shelf, followed by Ella's bins, then Emilia's, then Rex's.  The next two shelves hold family things and some of Craig's and my stuff and then Craig and I each have a shoe shelf.  The brown bins on top hold odds and ends like art smocks and extra shoe laces.  There's plenty of room between where the kids' coats hang and the shelves to comfortably stand and move around to access the bins.

Other than some things we didn't need anymore, the closet still holds the same amount of stuff, just much more organized.  Some day I might even get around to putting labels on the bins.

Before & After