Several years ago I bought a piece of furniture that held all the front hall "stuff", coats, shoes, hats, umbrellas, etc. I really loved it in the beginning but then it went south..




This is embarrassing to even show this picture but, hey, what fun is there in a makeover that is perfect to begin with, right?

The last few years it has become a major catch-all and was looking pretty shabby (and not in a good way) so I decided this would be a great furniture project! I decided that I wanted to paint it, too.






No doubt this needed work, serious work. This is a very unattractive piece of furniture. I could have just cleaned up the mess and let it go at that but I really wanted a "pretty" front door organizer.

The first thing I did was have my husband take off the back. I knew I wanted to have a pretty fabric on the back.. that would instantly pretty it up. Would you believe it was CARDBOARD??








Next, he took the staples out.




Out in the yard, getting ready to paint...





I found just the right fabric... I brought home 2 or 3 and wavered back and forth and finally settled on this one.

I laid the cupboard face down on the living room floor. First I ironed the fabric so that there were no wrinkles. I hate ironing. I used to have to iron all the clothes for the family when I was a kid. Okay, anyway, I laid the fabric on the back and cut the fabric about 2 inches all the way around. Then I folded the fabric over twice so that the raw edge was completely covered.




I have an electric staple gun and I love it!! I use it all the time. As I folded the fabric I stapled it.

Oh, did I mention what happened to the cardboard back? It was left outside during the tag sale we had in June and got ruined in the rain. So I said, "Heck with it. I'll just have a fabric back."




I also put some Fabri-Tac glue in between the fabric and the furniture to help hold it firmly.





I bought 2 bins for the shoes and sandals at Home Goods.









I bought some nice new hooks at Home Depot and put them in (MYSELF). YAY. I used a drill to drill new holes and then a battery powered screw driver. Myself. It's so satisfying to use power tools.

This basket sits on the shelf for misc. stuff.




I had bought this yellow birdcage last year and turned it into a clipboard for pictures of the grands and friends. I didn't do a thing to it either. Love it.








The new hooks....





Here is ANOTHER thing I found at a tag sale that was perfect for this project... a metal letter organizer. I love it.









I still thought something more could be done to it and had some of this thick rope hanging around. I glued it on with Fabri-Tac.













An improvement over this....







What happened with all the junk? I put the heavy coats in the hall closet... that's next on the list of places to redo. I moved the stuff in the corner, too.

I am so happy about how this turned out. I'm just loving redoing areas of my house. Hope you like this.


You might want to check out my "Under the kitchen sink organization".