Wood Hall Tree

Our house has a big, beautiful front porch. The front door opens to our living room, which I’d like to think is warm and inviting. However, we rarely use our front door. Even when guests come to stay with us, we typically enter and exit out the back of the house. So, the first and last thing we see (and anyone else sees when they’re joining us) is the mudroom. The room isn’t unattractive when it’s bare, but in the past two years we have lived here it has become a holding room for shoes, dirty gardening tools, empty flowerpots, and grilling tools. While I do still want the space to store some things, I would like it to be less of a messy catchall.

To replace the storage furniture, I priced hall trees online. My favorites cost hundreds of dollars or more. Most of them are MDF, so set down one growler with some condensation — homebrewers’ wives, raise your hand if you feel me — and now the MDF has cracks and bubbles. Then I thought, can I make one?

Spoiler alert: I made one with my husband using a plan by Ana White that uses six 2x4s and two 2x6s. It cost $90 in materials and equipment.