Re-purposing

Happy Friday everyone!

Sometimes I get stuck on finding something for a space in our house- example: we needed a place to corral shoes by the front door, because I was getting sick of tripping over a big pile of them every time we came home.  So I searched, and searched, and searched for a shoe rack that would look decent, with no luck.  Problem was, I had tunnel vision and was only searching for “shoe rack”.  Sometimes I need to step back and think outside the box.  What else can hold shoes?  What else do I want to use this for besides holding shoes?  How big do I want it to be?

After thinking about what I really needed (shoe holder, mail and key holder, something medium height and not too deep because we have a small entry)- I stumbled upon the idea of using a bookshelf!  Duh.  I wanted something with a warm wood tone, and it needed to be well made, not out of particle board.  One day, I stumbled upon this:

Riley bookshelf from World Market**

I loved the look, color and the dimensions were perfect for the space.  Sold!!  When it arrived, I was pleasantly surprised- it has a lot of craftsman details that you can’t see from the online photos, and it’s solid wood.  My husband put it together for me, and we both loved it.  He even had the idea to add some shelf paper to the shelves to protect them from mud/dirt from our shoes- genius!

Here it is in its new home:

Sorry to blind everyone with my running shoes- whoops.  It’s a perfect fit- to the left is the downstairs bedroom door and our front door.  I dressed it up with a basket to hold keys/wallet/cell phone/mail and a couple of accessories that we already had.  Verdict?  We use it all the time!  I can’t believe we lived here almost a year without it- it makes such a difference.

Here’s the entry before we got organized:

Ok, it was never this messy- this is from when we first bought the house!

And here’s the entry now!

It was a happy accident that the color almost perfect matches the frames above it and the front door- I guess it was meant to be. 

What do you think?

Have a great weekend everyone!

**Disclosure:  I was not paid or compensated in any way by this company for this post.