The Woodland Boot Room – Stylish & practical boot room storage
As I have mentioned many times before, our woodland home is a little on the tatty side. Originally the main offices for the surrounding 700 acres of woodland (that has since been split and sold in small lots) it is a very basic, poorly made timber clad building and was vacant for years even when my husband set up his oak framing workshop here.
After many years of renting properties, we moved to my in-laws during my pregnancy and after the birth of our daughter in 2013 we finally had our planning approved for change of use, from commercial use to domestic dwelling.
This place is a constant work in progress, once completely open plan, we recently completed another room, my office/spare room. Before that we focussed our attention primarily on creating a garden from scratch, for us to all enjoy. When our daughter was a toddler, every opportunity I had on my own, I set about smartening up the porch/boot room; stripping back and painting the dark wooden entrance to our home.
I am so pleased I did it; as tatty as our home looks, it is little areas like this and these smaller projects that I can really sink my teeth in to without much help from the other half. Still to finish in this particular space, is the door furniture, blinds, as well as sourcing a cost effective wooden flooring solution, that will run from the boot room, throughout the main living space, to make maintaining and cleaning a little easier for me.
So, it has taken a while to get our boot room to the position we have it now, and of course in a boot room we were after some practical and stylish storage solutions, to keep things tidy and organised.
We have coloured hooks to introduce a bit a colour, on which coats, bags and hats are hung, sitting beneath the hooks is a really great storage chest my husband made, doubling up as a bench seat, with a nice cushion, it stores all the bits and pieces for outings and woodland adventures. There are two small oak shelves either side of the front door which holds jars of seasonal woodland finds and to the right of the door is a simple wire post rack.
For our everyday shoes, we added the Chedworth Shoe Locker with 6 Cubby Holes from Garden Trading; this was the ideal size for the space (H66 x W50 x D35cm), made from fir wood the Chedworth Shoe Locker offers plenty of shoe storage with its six compartments. This stylish storage unit is a wonderfully neat and tidy solution for our boot room, which before we had this unit, was cluttered with footwear. The shoe locker, even has a little space for labelling each cubby hole for each member of the family. This also doubles up as a handy side table, where we have pots which contain various things.
Our boot room may not be tiny, but we have a lot of boots, and with countless pairs for us and any visitors at any one time, welly boot storage space is limited. I have no objection to boots being taken off and discarded, after all, there is nothing better than chucking off muddy boots after a long walk, however, when it comes to storing them once dry, we decided we needed a welly rack in the boot room. The wooden welly rack from Garden Trading was ideal and perfect for the boot room. Made from oak bars and with a stylish charcoal coloured base, this is a great rack for storing boots neatly in pairs.
Garden Trading have a wonderful selection of accessories and lighting for kitchens, gardens, potting sheds or laundry rooms. Their lovely range of original products work perfectly in a sleek modern home, or a more traditional home, like ours. In today’s throw-away society, Garden Trading aim to sell attractive, everyday useful items that are made to a high quality that will stand the test of time.
At Garden Trading all products are made using responsibly sourced materials, within the EU wherever possible and from ethically-responsible manufacturers. So, if you, like me are after some storage solutions for a boot room, hallway or similar, do take a look at the wonderful range of accessories, lighting and furniture at Garden Trading.
Our boot room, is an area of high traffic and huge amounts of things; hats, bikes, buggies, wellies, coats and recycling boxes, as well as busy, muddy adults, children and wet, filthy dogs. This space had to work for us, thankfully now, it is a light, bright and practical (all walls are wipe clean paint!) area of organised clutter… next job, flooring!
Take a look at how our boot room used to look, before my 2014 painting and decorating spree. I think you will agree, it looks much better and really needed doing!
Now I just need to save a whole lot of pennies to sort out the flooring… and the ceiling, don’t even get me started on the AWFUL ceilings here!!
For more information or to buy, visit Garden Trading.
Please Note: I have not been paid for this post, although I received two storage items mentioned above, in exchange for writing an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
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