My Favorite Home Project | Our DIY Modern Farmhouse Hall Tree
Need a spot by the front door to get the family organized?
Create a hall tree style bench with storage that functions as a helpful drop off zone! We are coming up on our 5 year anniversary of moving into our home, and today, I’m sharing one of the projects we completed ourselves that’s made the most impact on our front entryway – this DIY modern farmhouse hall tree project.
First impressions are everything, even at home!
Our bench hall tree is both functional and stylish, and everyone who visits notices it right away. We live in the desert in a stucco style home, and molding details like this aren’t super common here in Arizona. This adds a nice, unexpected touch. I love that this hall tree is unique and is built-in, so it looks like it was here all along.
My husband has many talents, and carpentry is one of them!
We tend to spend weekends remodeling. It’s our hobby, and we enjoy completing home improvement projects. He takes the lead on the building, while I contribute to the design aspect and paint and help out where I can. We have added lots of wood molding details to our home, which I think makes it feel so custom and stylish.
Considering a hall tree project? Here’s what we did.
We mocked up our own design by first using masking tape to create a visual of where the seat would go, where the top shelf would go, and the design of the molding inside the hall tree on the wall. All of our wood materials are from The Home Depot, including the plywood, trim, hooks, corbels, and paint.
The bench is a plywood rectangular box 20 inches high and 20 inches wide. The base is built from 2x4s. You’ll see there are three vertical center supports and a horizontal shelf inside to create shoe storage.
There are two large wood corbels installed on each side of the bench and three smaller corbels installed for the top shelf. The corbels really give it that built-in look. Large oil-rubbed bronze coat hooks provide much-needed hanging storage to keep items organized.
Once painted, I love how all the wood details come together to look uniform as if it’s all one piece. All the molding in our home is painted with Behr paint in Pure White.
Don’t forget the bench cushion!
For my bench cushion, I glued a piece of 3-inch foam to the top of the same-sized piece of plywood! You can buy foam by the yard at the fabric store. Then we covered it with a piece of upholstery fabric and used a staple gun to attach the fabric underneath at the bottom of the plywood. We’ve actually replaced the fabric recently to this black and white fabric that I love!
What a remarkable before and after!
This wall went from super boring to updated and functional. It’s been years since we completed this bench, but I still walk by this space every day and enjoy it. We’ve since painted the walls a light gray, which brightens the room nicely! What do you think?
Not into DIY carpentry? No worries!
You can use our hall tree as inspiration and hire an expert to build it, or you can purchase a similar piece of furniture.
Here are some farmhouse-inspired hall trees to consider:
- Halstead Hall Tree via Wayfair.com
- Prepac Shoe Storage Hall Tree via Amazon.com
- Bush Furniture Salinas Hall Tree with Shoe Storage via Overstock.com
I think it’s lovely, and being able to admire your own handiwork is the icing on the cake. Well done!
Aw thanks so much!
I love your style, Lina!💗
Thanks so much Debra!! 💕
Wow Lina you have many talents, and your hubby is a stud!!! I love home projects, sadly my hubby hates them. Your hall tree came out amazing, it looks very posh and professional – you two have some skills!!! Thanks for sharing!
Aw thanks so much for the sweet comment 💕
What tools were needed for this project. It came out great!
Thanks Tig! Well most of the wood pieces were cut using a compound mider saw, and then a nail gun with air compressor to nail together. He also has a sander used after caulking and filling nail holes. Hope this helps!
Oh my goodness it is so beautiful!!! But if I tell my hubby to make this for me he will go crazy because we have so many other remodeling things going on right now! Truly amazing!!!
Oh haha I’m sure mine can relate!
😂🤣😂🤣
And thanks so much for the sweet comment!
Your entryway is beautiful!!! I wish I had room for something like this in my home. But our front door opens into the living room and nowhere to put anything like this. At least we do have a closet behind the front door.
Aw shucks – well thanks so much for the sweet comment!
My husband made one for us with Hemnes tv stand and Hemnes wall mounted shelf (for above a tv) from Ikea and framed it out with 1×6’s and we painted it marshallow by hgtv and added hooks. We love it! I’ll have to attempt the cushion! It was about $350, but we wanted a bigger one and to have cubbies above.
Oh nice! Thanks for sharing that idea 👍
Wow that whole wall transformation is amazing! I have no vision so we’ve done no remodeling.
The pantry redo is also crazy.
Aw thanks Lo for the sweet comment!
What a difference in the before and after! Night and day! I LOVE posts like this. We just baught our dream home.. moving in July 31st. I’d love to see more budget friendly DIY home projects on hip2save.
Oh thanks so much Heather! Congrats on the new home and thanks for the feedback on this post. ❤️👍
Hello! How did your husband secure the vertical portion of the hall tree to the wall? I’m working of a variation of your project (no solid backing, just the vertical & horizontal 1×2 mdf boards) and want to be sure when I hang the shelf and coats on it the vertical boards that they don’t pull away from the wall.
Hope mine ends up looking as good as yours!
That’s awesome good luck! Please be sure to send a picture Lina@hip2save.com so I can see!
Per My husband – the shelf is supported using wood corbels. As far as the boards : MDF is first glued and nailed to wall using a finish mail gun. Try to find studs when starting, so you can make sure you’re hitting those spots well. We used a stud finder tool to do that.