Hallway Closet Makeover

Our hallway closet just made the entry way into our house feel too small. We have plenty of space in our laundry room in the back of the house, and a closet there to store our coats we aren't wearing depending on what season it is. For that reason we decided to makeover our closet, open up the space, and make it more grand looking.

Our idea came from this great blog, which really has a lot of inspiring posts on it. I like to make things hard on myself and so I took that original idea, and from that went on YouTube and learned how to make custom raised panels. The project took about 3 weeks to complete in my spare time, but learned a lot during the process.

The frame is built from 2x4's and 3/4" plywood covers the bench top and shelf, both edge banded and painted. For the front of the bench and the walls I used 3/4" sheets of MDF, routed in my router table using a raised panel bit set. Marc over at the Wood Whisperer has a great video on how to achieve this, I just made it work for a wall versus a cabinet door, but of course the exact same concept. If I get around to it someday, I hope to do the same type of raised panel on my kitchen island and the bottom half of the walls in our entry way as well.

The final step in the project was to fill, sand, and paint everything white. I went with a semi-gloss Dove White color by Benjamin Moore, but used Sherwin Williams trim paint which I love. I hope you find the pictures helpful and inspirational.

-Mike

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