Our last house had this incredible “back of house” setup, where you came in off the garage and immediately had a small mud room-esque room where you could offload all the day’s “gear” before moving on to the kitchen. It was bliss.

Our current house, however, has a breezeway entry from the garage that deposits you right into the living room, around the corner from a hall closet

The best layout for the living room helps to funnel you into a hallway-like thoroughfare that leads to the kitchen, powder room and main entry, but it’s pretty narrow. Start kicking off shoes, and offloading keys and wallets and phones, and the living room goes from calming to cluttered in a beat.

We needed a drop zone.

I had seen various shoe cabinet options years ago at IKEA while shopping for something else, and thought the Hemnes could be a solution for us in this house. It’s a smart way to tuck away shoes and even bags, and provide a small tabletop for sunglasses and other small items. But it definitely needed a style upgrade to qualify for living room status.

My rule on jumping on trend bandwagons is: Pricey? Go timeless. Inexpensive? Sure, try the trend.

Since this cabinet was IKEA affordable, I decided to hack it up by removing the legs and then giving pole wrap a go, since it happened to be blowing up my Instagram feed at the time. It was super easy to work with and we alternated the pattern to add a little interest (and ease!) to the project. Blinged out with new finger pulls, a rich merlot paint color and a bit of antiquing glaze, I think it adds a nice pop while giving us some tuck-it-all-away options. We keep keys, phones and pocket debris in the dough bowl on top (Studio McGee line at Target).

Eventually we may convert the breezeway into an enclosed mudroom – we have plans for that left by the home’s former owners – but for now, problem addressed.