lock me up + throw away the key

i had a hay day with this house going new design directions.

but sometimes, when it ain't broke....you don't fix it.

in our first house, we worked in a back entry area right off the garage, and we loved the convenience of dropping coats, shoes, hats, and bags right into the built-in lockers on our way into the house. we also were crazy about our first home's set-up of laundry, powder room and pantry branching off the locker room. about as easy breezy as can be when you're hustling back into the house with armfuls of groceries, wearing dirty lawn-mowing clothes, or those times when you just gotta..[ahem]..go.

ahhhh. memories.

the design came from a combination of photos i'd found in magazines here + there. we kept things pretty airy, open and easy to use.

believe it or not, those woven west elm baskets you see weren't bought before the lockers were built, but they fit perfectly within each nook. [and thanks to the help of my girlfriend those nifty storage bins were snagged for the online sale price at the store in chicago! pays to do your homework, folks....and to have friends willing to go outta the way for you]

so the functionality of the back locker room was impossible to forget and silly to change for the sake of changing [at least i'm telling myself that].

and with that, i present....our new lockers!

so, i maybe didn't branch out too much in this spot of the house. but we are still loving this space just as much as ever. the lockers are located directly across from our back door, and to the left is our powder room, and to the right our laundry + coat closet.



















and the kitchen island and pantry are just steps away through the arched doorway! so plunk down your meijer bags and away you go!

the most obvious change that we made is the addition of doors on the bottom shoe shelf. while shoes can look pretty sexy when on display, who needs that pressure day-in, day-out?!

i liked the idea of being about to stow + go and not fret about pointing toes, perfect placement, and lining things up juuuust right. we also switched up the hooks to a lovely matte silver version from ikea that are nicely stark and functional in appearance. and lastly i also tweaked the trim on the side of the lockers to make it more three-dimensional and finished looking.

+++

this area of our house wasn't always so much to our taste. on the original print it was a whole 'nuther situation going on.

the half bath was next to the dining room [we thought this could get awkward quickly], there was an office nook squeaked in by the back door, and since the original house plan was on a 45 degree angle, everything was a little more tight + angled. while none of these elements were necessarily terrible, we knew what we wanted and worked with our architect to customize the space to the ultra-functional landing spot we'd been accustomed to in the last casa. and i'd highly recommend a similar set-up to anyone remodeling or building!