Hallways are a prime location for clutter to build, be it shoes, bikes or cardboard boxes. But there are many brilliant hallway storage ideas out there to bring order to the chaos. One DIY lover has taken a basic IKEA shoe storage unit and transformed it into a stylish piece of furniture that keeps things neat.
Lara Bezzina painted her IKEA unit and the wall panelling behind it in a gorgeous red shade. With the addition of large circular and semi-circular handles made from plywood, she’s elevated it into a unique item with a high-end feel.
Before
‘I saw an image a while ago where someone had stuck various wooden shapes to cupboard doors and that’s where the idea for the statement handles came from,’ Lara tells Real Homes.
‘My hallway is super narrow and looked so messy with the previous pile of shoes. I wanted something that didn’t take up much space to store all the shoes that I could also make look great,’ she explains.
With a hallway just 90cm in width, she needed something really compact. ‘I also wanted to keep the decor quite simple as it’s such a small space,’ she says. The decision to paint the panelling in the same colour was a clever move as it makes it blend in, creating the impression of more space.
After
The more floor you can see in a room, the bigger it will feel, so the addition of new, gold legs to raise it up off the ground was a stroke of genius, plus it makes the unit look completely different.
Lara bought the shoe storage unit itself for £15 on eBay, and the legs were £12, also from eBay. She said the cheapest ones she could find were chrome, so she gold leafed them.
The handles were made from 3x12mm by 300mm plywood circles, which were £12 from @made_by_tree. Valspar mixed the paint to mimic Preference Red by Farrow and Ball.
Lara shared the finished look on her Instagram @lara.bezzina, where her modern shoe storage unit attracted lots of comments from other DIY lovers.
‘Really beautiful and best of all original because you made it yourself,’ one wrote. ‘Oh my word, that’s gorgeous. I need this! Our hallway is so narrow,’ said another.
It also provides some shelf space, which she's styled with a statement vase, candle and monkey ornament to hold her keys. IKEA hacking at its best.
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