A nice standing coat rack is… well, nice. But if you want to really add something traditionally elegant to your entrance way, something that screams old world charm yet is incredibly functional and useful day in and day out… then a coat rack bench may be just what you’re looking for.
They are great for creating a space to put everything from coats and jackets to hats and umbrellas and purses and book bags… and even groceries when you’re in a hurry and just want to get them inside out of the rain! Just stack them up on the coat rack bench until you get them all brought inside. A coat rack bench provides a central dumping ground, or that essential stopoff place between outside and inside that every family needs!
Styles of Coat Rack Benches: Asking what kind of styles are available in a coat rack bench is much the same as asking to describe the different types of snowflakes. There are many many different designs, and different sizes, and different materials, and even different colors. Don’t think that this makes things harder, on the contrary! It simply means that whatever your preference and whatever your budget, you can find the coat rack bench that is perfect for you.
When we think of coat rack benches we usually think of them as being wooden, and that’s primarily will what I’m going to talk about today. Of course, you can get them made in just about any kind of material that you could think of, essentially most people think of them as wooden so I’m going to stick with wooden today. There are many different wooden options including mahogany, cherry, Beachwood, Oak, etc.
Modern or Traditional: benches come in different styles as well from ultramodern all the way up to traditional and many options in between. On the modern end we see benches that are made of metal and other material like aluminum with padded seats, of course, for the bench. Another modern twist is to mount a coat rack panel on your wall at shoulder height and then to simply place any small bench beneath it. This creates the functionality of a traditional coat rack bench but without the bulky size of a normal traditional design… and without the cost as well.
Traditional coat rack benches range in nearly infinite designs as well. Some contain mirrors in the back panel to help open up the room and make them seem larger. Some benches contains shelving units inside of them or the lids lift up to provide storage area within. Some of the benches have padded seating, some of them are bare plank wood, it just depends on your preference. Personally we use ours as a high-traffic area people are always sitting down and dumping things and picking things up and things like that; we also use ours as a central area to take shoes on and off when entering the house so in that sense I need padding on the seat!!
What should you expect to pay? these things aren’t cheap mainly because they’re big! There is a lot of material, and a lot of wood, if you choose to purchase a wooden one of course. Some of the ultramodern slimmed down versions can be found much much cheaper than a traditional version because these don’t contain as much material and aren’t as large. But generally speaking prices start for the smallest that you could find at around $150 (I’m talking about ultramodern small models here), and quickly balloon from there into the $1-$2,000 range for really large and really nice ones. You can find a good functional decent sized traditional wooden coat rack bench in the mid-$300 range and it should fit your needs just fine.