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susanne283

coat closet

susanne283
14 years ago

Hi there,

I just bought a 1930's center entrance colonial. The only closets in the house are the small ones in the four bedrooms. What does everyone do with their coats/vacuum cleaners/linen....? Looking for some creative ideas. Thanks....

Comments (18)

  • msjay2u
    14 years ago

    ha! the magic question has been asked. I have a small closet in my living room that I hang coats up in but if you have an entryway you can get hooks and hang them on the wall. I have a small basement for my hot water heater etc. In the stairwell I have hung nails and use them to hang my broom, mop and swiffer. In fact I have nails all over (hung high of course) and store a lot of junk in there. LOL.
    here is an idea for a coat rack that is built right on the wall


    I do not have any hallways (believe it or not) but I think these ideas would be clever if I did!

    As for the vacuum. How about a great vacuum cleaner cover? Already made they run $75 and up on the internet but you can get a pattern to make your own or convince one of your crafty friends to make one for you.

    I keep my linens in a bottom drawer in the dresser of each room.
    I have a rubbermaid underbed storage container I keep my junk in under the coffee table in the livingroom.

    I do not buy anything in bulk anymore because I do not have any place to store it.

    You will get a new frame of mind and if you find yourself veering away from keeping a lot of stuff. If you don't look at "how clean is your house". It will help you remember that even though you may be neat things can get out of control pretty fast.

    do a google search for vacuum cover

    this is a broom cover

    Here is a link that might be useful: vacuum cleaner cover patterns

  • alexia10
    14 years ago

    That sounds like my old house. We put hooks in every place that did not look offensive, mostly by the staircase and in a small hallway by the kitchen. In the hall actually we put a double raw of hooks (one high for adults and one low for the kids). We put the vacuum behind a door. In the bathroom, behind the door we built a recess cabinet floor to ceiling and that's where all the towels went. As far for the bed linens they went to my closet. Comforters, blankets and pillows went to vacuum bags in to the attic. Actually, come to think we used the attic a lot.

  • sherwoodva
    14 years ago

    Our house was built in 1938. The closets are about three feet wide (the door on each closet is only two feet wide). We have a finished attic with a bigger closet and we finished the basement and added a closet for coats, boots, etc. We renovated the basement bath (had to - it looked like the BA in an abandoned gas station) and installed a linen closet that is only 12 inches deep, but goes across one wall.

    The vacuum cleaner stays in the basement when we aren't using it. I have a laundry room that has a door on it, so odd things like the vacuum get shoved in there when company comes. Brooms, mops, etc "live" in the laundry room.

    Comforters, out of season clothes, etc. go in vacuum bags in eaves in the attic.

    Our house has no foyer and no hallways.

  • karinl
    14 years ago

    It is the money question. In our 1905ish mini-victorian we have a 4-foot-wide entrance hallway that is 11 feet long... two rooms that we use as bedrooms go off either side of it right inside the front door. Thus, the inside corner of these two bedrooms are used to some extent for hall stuff, esp shoes, mittens and hats, and also garden hand tools for when I work out front. Other than that, walking into my house is like walking through a school cloakroom... coats hung on different types of hooks on both sides, usually.

    We did recess one set of hooks into the stud spaces so the coats wouldn't bulge into the walkway as much. And there's a quite high hatrack on the wall for brim-type hats.

    Linen in the bottom drawer of the wardrobe, which (a) we have because there are NO closets in our house, and which (b) is in the living room because the bedrooms are too small. Towels on a high shelf in the bathroom (ceilings are 10 feet, we try to use the height).

    The vacuum... where ever it was last used... looking at making space in the laundry room, which is the original pantry off the kitchen.

    I guess if it wasn't worth it, we wouldn't keep doing it! If you have 4 closets, it's a wealth of space :-)

    KarinL

  • slateberry
    14 years ago

    Some people keep their extra sets of bedsheets between the mattress and the box spring; if you fold them large and thin, and all to the same thickness, it works, especially towards the foot of the bed.

    I dearly miss having a coat closet. I hope to make my dining room octagonal and gain a coat closet in one of the wedges. The door would open into the hallway, not the dining room. I already have bay windows, so just two wedges would complete the octagon.

    We have hooks in the back hallway, so the front hallway sort of stays uncluttered. Guests get to drape their coats over the radiator by the front door (toasty!) or else I carry them back and hang them. We get a lot of exercise with this old-fashioned layout!

    Here is a link that might be useful: semi-octagon dining room

  • antiquesilver
    14 years ago

    Slateberry, your house is magnificent!

  • slateberry
    14 years ago

    I _WISH_ that were my house!!! Just a favorite victorian house blog that I go to for ideas. :-)

  • antiquesilver
    14 years ago

    Well Slateberry, you have a wonderful inspiration house; I was so envious! Hopefully, you don't have the settling/cracking issues mentioned on the blog, though.

  • schoolhouse_gw
    14 years ago

    My goodness. I spent an hour on your old house site, Slateberry. What an undertaking, but it turned out so wonderful. You must be proud. Thanks so much for sharing.

  • powermuffin
    14 years ago

    We bought an old armoire for our coat closet. It is beautiful and sits in a little setback area of the dining room. I found it on Craigslist and paid $300 for it. Normal size hangers don't work in it, but I have smaller ones that do.

    We have no halls either. In the front room (no entryway either) I have a shelf with hooks on it against the wall by the door. I have a painted dresser in the front room that holds most of my table linens, the rest are in another dresser. We have very small closets in the two original bedrooms, which we use as storage as well.

    We have an almost basement, which I can almost stand up in, and it is filled with tools, paint, holiday decorations, etc. If we didn't have it, all that stuff would be in our detached, one-car garage! Old houses are fun!
    Diane
    Armoire:

  • schoolhouse_gw
    14 years ago

    Beautiful room, powermuffin. Like the idea of the armoire.

    And one more comment for Slateberry - I couldn't help thinking of Harry Potter's bedroom when I saw pictures of "The Club House" at your old house site!

  • slateberry
    14 years ago

    Susanne, I'm going to try to put this hijack to bed once and for all; I'm so sorry it happened; I just wanted to show the link to that octagonal room bc I think it's a good way to gain storage.

    For the speedreaders who still haven't noticed:

    I AM NOT CRAIG OR YVONNE, AND THEIR HOUSE IS NOT MINE.

    It's a great house, it's just not my house. I don't want to take credit that belongs to them. If you like their house, you can email them from the site I linked to in my comments about octagonal rooms and wedge-shaped closets.

    Modestly,
    Slateberry, aka Alex **not Craig or Yvonne**

  • igloochic
    14 years ago

    LOL Alex, oh take the house silly...it's a wonderful one to claim as your own heh heh

    I too have an octognal dining room so viewing that one was fun :) Thanks for sharing even if you got goober over it LOL I have wedge shaped closets in mine as well heh heh

    Mine is a china cabinet and the door was removed (we just found it) but it's a nice idea, and even period appropriate to shave off a corner for something like this:
    {{!gwi}}

    Forgive me the bow on the tree...we were only just moved in and I had to improvise (and did so badly) LOL
    {{!gwi}}

    I actually just use the phone nook which now has a smaller desk and hooks along the wall you can't see when looking in from the hall.
    {{!gwi}}

    Alex you can claim our house if you'd like :oP But if you do you have to visit and clean bathrooms LOL (hell I'll give you half the house if you'll just clean the bathrooms heh heh)

    I do really want to thank you...I really enjoyed that website!

  • slateberry
    14 years ago

    Holy cornices Batman, that's one heck of a phone nook! Thanks for sharing pictures; I am beyond inspired! That notched arch is something else.

    You know, before this thread, I thought my octagonal dining room plan was just another one of my drunken house musing fantasies. But now they're popping up everywhere; so why not? Now I just gotta go look up my framing code rules. And finish my other projects.

  • schoolhouse_gw
    14 years ago

    Oops. Well, Craig or Yvonne - I love your house, thanks to Slateberry for sharing the link. :)

    igloochic, gorgeous diningroom. The phone nook is a gem.

  • igloochic
    14 years ago

    Mine are octagonal because of the chimneys. Most of the fireplaces are set on an angle back to back into the big chimneys...

    Here's the smoking parlor fireplace...which backs up to the dining room fireplace:
    {{gwi:1136958}}

    {{!gwi}}

    Here is a very rough house plan drawn by the PO. What we recently learned is that behind that diagonal china closet rests another chimney which is why it's so small, and why it finishes the octagonal of the room verses just being a bay sort of window on one side. I think I'm going to find a chimney in the center hall (the builder was english and they used to do winter stoves in the center halls...we know there was one above it and in the hall below on the basement level as well).

    {{!gwi}}

    You don't really look at the outside of the house and say "Octagon" instead you say "mcmansion" (because we use every square inch of the property boundry LOL But just for the dining room (and the master suite) we have these little octagon areas...very fun, but bizzare LOL
    {{!gwi}}

    The plans are a bit deceptive...how could you hide chimney's in those interior walls...well they're about a foot and a half thick.

  • xantippe
    14 years ago

    We rented a 900 square foot bungalow with no front closet, but it came with hooks in the back hallway. They worked great!

    The house we bought is also 900 square feet. It has the tiniest coat closet ever, which we lined with hooks. We also put hooks in the basement stairwell hallway, which opens onto the driveway. Very convenient.

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