What's it called?

[Jamie Buxton]

I've been asked to build a piece of furniture. I'm pretty sure it has a common name, but I don't know what it is. This piece sits in the front hall of a home. It often has a bench to sit on while you're changing into or out of your outside shoes. Above the bench it often has hooks to hang jackets and the like. It may have a mirror, so you can adjust your hat before you go out the door. Sometimes it has a place at one side to put your wet umbrella. Sometimes there's a shelf for keys and mail. The picture I'm seeing in my mind is kinda Craftsman-style.

What is it called?

[larry merlau]

its called a hall tree

[Rich Konopka]

I have seen these as a bench (HALL TREE (http://www.stacksandstacks.com/html/103743_hall-tree-with-storage-bench-ashland.htm)) but Normie has it as a single chair. He call's it a Hall Seat. (http://www.newyankee.com/getproduct3.cgi?0103)


Nice project !!

[Steve Beadle]

For the bench part, I have heard them called a settee, entry bench, deacon's bench, hall bench, or foyer bench. Wood # 145 (Nov. 2002), p. 42, has a plan. So does Popular Woodworking #111 (Nov. 99), p. 52; also Popular Woodworking's Great American Furniture (Spring '02), p. 28--a Greene Brothers Hall Bench, they call it.

[Gary Max]

To Funny---I am buildimg two of them---if you do a search one of them is done and pics are posted---still working on the second.

[Jamie Buxton]

"Hall tree", hunh? Okay, that's what I'll call mine too. And now that I have a name to call it, I can search for examples to lift ideas from.

(..funny... I'd heard that name, and thought it meant something more like a coatstand -- something with a vertical post and some hooks or arms at the top. Y'know, something shaped kinda like a tree. This piece of furniture is more a bench than a tree. I guess there's sometimes no accounting for our language!)

Thanks all

Jamie

[Todd Burch]

I think I've heard the term "settle." (I guess to settle your hiney down and take yo shoes off.)