Shoe Bench

Building a shoe bench was one of the first projects I wanted to complete.  I needed a place to sit when I come through the door where I could change my shoes.  The shoe bench would need to have a drawer of sorts so that our dog couldn't easily get to the shoes and potentially destroy them.

My original inspiration was a Shoe Dresser on Ana-White.com.  The dresser was narrow and would fit along the wall of the foyer.  The drawer essentially tilts outward and is kept from getting over-extended by a piece of belt attached to the bottom of the drawer.

The shoe dresser was tall though, and wouldn't provide a place to sit.  I started the project by sketching out a project design on paper.  I knew the length and width of the project were limited to the space behind the front door.  Given the narrow space, a slide out drawer was unlikely to work, as the back of the drawer would take up valuable space.

I decided to use two 2x6 boards along the top, sides, and bottom.  All boards were joined using a Kreg Jig.  I think using boards along the bottom, rather than having four legs, makes the bench more solid.  I would say the hardest part about this project was fitting the face inside the frame.  Dimensional lumber is close to straight, but not 100% perfect.  This meant I had to sand down the edges of the face in several places where it just wouldn't fit into the frame even though the dimensions indicated it would.

The face of the shoe bench is make of two 2x8s, again, joined together by a Kreg Jig.  I fastened the face to the frame of the bench using three hinges I bought at Home Depot.  This enables the face to tilt forward.  I had to drill through part of the face to attach the handle, then screwed on plates for the magnetic closure.

Attached to inside bottom of the face is a 1x8 that goes along the length of the bench.  This serves as the floor where the shoes rest against.  As the face is pulled / tilts open, the shoes move along with it.  There isn't enough room inside the bench for the shoes to fall behind.

Akina: "Wow! Great idea!"

The face is held in position by a drawer magnet.  I love the lock/click sound!  I added bungee cords as a restraint so that the handle on the face wouldn't fall forward and ding our floors.  I added this kind of last minute, but it adds a nice touch.  The bungee cords are attached to the base of the frame and to the base of the face.  They are also run through another eye hook attached to the side of the frame so that the cords wouldn't get caught under the face when it tilts closed and to generate enough distance so that the cords would have enough pull.

I used some left over white paint to finish.  I thought I would stain it, but I think it looks better matching the floorboards around the front door.  I still might attach some sort of protective coating to the inside of the face, as dirty shoes might leave lasting marks otherwise.

Another project complete!