Creating an Entry Using a Cabinet as a Room Divider + Our Guest Cottage Update

If you live in a smaller home, you’ll know that having a lot of storage options in your house is really important. This is especially true in entryways where things tend to get dropped off and piled up – having a good entry storage system in place is always helpful! But what do you do if you don’t have a closet or a wall near your entry? Let me share with you one great solution, and how we tackled this problem in our guest cottage.

If you’ve been following along with me over the past couple of weeks, you’ll know that we’ve decided to turn our old garage house (the home that we lived in for 7 years before we built our current home) into a guest cottage. You can read more about that right here. My parents will be our first guest cottage guests, and they’ve been doing a ton of the cleaning and organizing of the space right along with me!

One large issue we had in the cottage was the entry. The front door opens up into a large open area which helps give the tiny home an open-concept feel, but there’s nowhere to store anything. Also, the area beside the door that’s opposite the living room isn’t very functional when it’s seen right from the entry:

The cottage entry before

One solution to help define and provide more storage for an awkward entry is to use a floating cabinet as a dividing wall. That’s exactly what we did here:

The cottage entry after

Now our little guest cottage entry looks like its own separate space, and there is a TON of storage for coats, accessories, footwear… and anything else our guests may want to store.

The unit we used here is called the Chandler 4-Piece Coat & Storage Cabinet from The Brick, and it’s such a great value for its price. This unit is really solid, and it has a really unique combination of doors, drawers, nooks and shelves.

I built the majority of the unit myself, and then my dad helped me finish building the drawers. All of the hardware is really sturdy, and the espresso melamine finish is really pretty!

When I was looking for a unit like this for the cottage entry, the Chandler caught my eye because of how practical it was. There’s just so much storage potential! This piece was actually the inspiration for the entire black & white theme of the house – I wanted to paint the cottage walls in white and this cabinet came in this beautiful warm black. The extreme contrast is just so striking.

When using a cabinet as a divider like this, make sure to anchor it safely to the wall, floor and neighbouring cabinets. Consult a professional like a general contractor to see what the safest way is to secure a floating cabinet in your space.

We painted the back of the Chandler cabinet units with warm black latex paint so that they looked cohesive from all angles. Now, the space behind these is usable too! My parents are going to put their roll-top desk here and use this little nook as an office.

The unit is three separate pieces, so you can arrange them in any order that works best for you. For us, it made the most sense to put the open hook unit right by the door so that bags and jackets can easily be hung here.

Natural coloured baskets on top of the unit give the entry some warmth and a hint of farmhouse appeal, as does the vintage wooden chair.

An old galvanized bucket filled with my mom’s peonies is the perfect final touch for our new guest cottage entry.

We’re so happy with how easy it was to make this little entry so much more functional. Now it’s on to the next space in our cottage renovation project!

Have you ever used cabinets as dividing walls? What do you think of our new guest cottage entry?

Disclaimer: This post is sponsored by The Brick. As always, all of the opinions here are my own. I only recommend companies that I use and love myself.