This DIY Transforms An Old Door Into Gorgeous Storage For Shoes And More

To the uninitiated, a "hall tree door bench" surely sounds like the most bland of word salads. But a hall tree is time-honored entryway furniture that often incorporates a bench seat, and it's a fairly common DIY project. TikTokker @lifeonwillowcreek brought "door" to the party by DIYing a hall tree using an old closet door, making the project just about as simple as possible.

The classic hall tree is perfect for areas like entryways and mudrooms because it typically incorporates hooks for coats and accessories, storage near its base (usually for shoes), a mirror for checking yourself on the way out, and a bench that's useful for taking shoes off and indispensable for putting them on. Most are 50 to 80 inches tall and are as wide (20 to 40 inches) and deep (12 to 20 inches) as space and taste allow. The door that @lifeonwillowcreek used had to be boosted on 2-by-4s because it was an old interior closet door made for a much smaller-than-average opening ... not as small as one of those weird card table closets or miniature milk doors in old houses, but still as narrow as and much shorter than the smallest modern linen closet door.

If you're thinking about building your own door hall tree bench, take care when finding the right place for it, and measure carefully. Watch out for windows, and leave enough room for doors to open and close freely and people to move around without having to dodge your creation. If you don't have enough room in your entry or mudroom, a door bench hall tree can absolutely work in other rooms as close to the usual point of entry as possible.

Lovely old doors are easy to come by at salvage yards and vintage shops but can be pretty difficult to reuse in a modern home. They're not pre-hung, there's a 50/50 change the door you see is right-handed when you need left-handed, and older doors often used mortise locks rather than the cylindrical locksets used today. But, hey, think of all that as a win when you're in need of a clever hallway furniture idea.

This door-based DIY project involves a morning of work and an afternoon watching paint dry. You can start by making a couple of MDF cubbies for shoe storage, though @lifeonwillowcreek acknowledges its a fragile material to work with. She might have discovered this when attaching the door and its 2-by-4 stilts to the back of the cubbies, which likely requires carefully placed pilot holes and a mix of construction adhesive and screws for a secure hold. MDF is strong enough for most furniture, but this design comes with the potential for strong tensile forces pulling the cubbies apart if the door doesn't remain perfectly upright. If you want something more reliable to build the cubby, 1-inch-thick wood boards will have an easier time holding screws in the edges (and you can wood glue the joints for a stronger connection).

Whatever you choose for building material, construct a basic box to match the width of the door and the height of your desired bench (typically about 18 to 20 inches high). Attach a shelf inside and upright dividers to make cube dividers to store your shoes. Screw this frame onto your raised door, and you'll be ready to customize the storage and style.

To finish her build, @lifeonwillowcreek painted the door and cubby white and stained a couple of boards to attach to the box as a bench seat, which she finished with an espresso stain. She stripped the hardware and painted it matte black before attaching a little mirror centered in the top panel of the door, which has a 1-over-3 layout. At a glance, the mirror gives the impression of a window set in the top panel's frame. Of course, your color choices and finishes will depend on your interior style.

Customize elements like the paint and storage configuration, and this project should be good enough to close the door on most of your hall tree needs. Before you get started, it might be a good idea to consider some of the possibilities that @lifeonwillowcreek had no need for. Her open cubbies could almost as easily have been a closed cabinet or a deep drawer, or the bench might have had a hinged seat that opens to a large storage space. You could even build hidden compartments for cash, keys, papers, home security-related gizmos, or whatever you need to hide.

Other possible features include replacing one or more door panels with chalk boards or subdividing the cubbies to store individual pairs of shoes. Use modular, adjustable hooks and shelves to make the piece more flexible. Install a mail sorter, build in a charging station, and add a few key hooks. You're only limited by your imagination (well, and the size of your door), so who knows what genius storage solutions you'll come up with?