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I haven’t done this, and I’m not very neat so I know full well that mine would be a mess. But I wanted to suggest a short term solution- I used two of the big command hooks underneath the regular coat racks for my kids coats, that way they can get them themselves and hang them up by themselves. It’s not the most elegant look but it works and doesn’t leave a lasting mark or anything. Just that and a little bench with bins for their shoes has helped a lot.

We have a cutout like that between two closets right when you walk into our house. We put a bench where the seat flips up there and hooks for the kid's stuff. Having hooks at their height is great but keeping shoes in the bench was obnoxious. Now we also have a cube shelf opposite which has one cube for each person's shoes and one cube with a fabric box for accessories (scarves, sunglasses, 3 year old's go bag with change of clothes). It works pretty well. But I'm more likely to keep things neat if they are open and not hidden in a closet.

ETA: now our bench stores less used outside stuff: snow pants, bug spray, etc

Our front closet is very shallow, so we did something very similar to that picture because it was the most space efficient way to actually hang coats! We don’t have a cushion....because while it might be inviting to sit on a bench in an empty closet - it’s not when there are a bunch of coats and bags hanging there. Instead, we have several shelves for shoes and boots. I also left the closet door on, but while it looks so cute when it’s neat, it does not when it’s messy or in the winter, when the shoe shelves get a bit dirty from snow/mud.

This is our set up, we recently diy'd the shelf and bench next to the closet. The closet uses hooks instead of hangers which helps, and has two shelves on the bottom for shoes... but with all of our shoes and coats its usually a mess.
I LOVE the new shelf/bench but it is also usually a mess. The basket on top is for hats/gloves/socks, and the bottom baskets are for LO's shoes - but they will usually dump out the whole box to get that one pair.

@josina: Yours looks great! You’ve inspired me to get baskets for the bottom - it looks much nicer that way.

We have a similar setup to the photo but not in a closet and it’s generally a mess! I love the idea people had of baskets for shoes because ours are just in an open shelf and it’s always jumbled. At least a basket would hide them! The cushion is nice in theory but ours is always full of coats so no one can actually sit there (DH’s coats especially are long!) what has been more beneficial for us is on the opposite wall of our bench/hooks I hung a double hook for each kid at their height. They can now hang their backpack and coat up themselves which has helped immensely! My ideal would be a coat closet with doors but keep their height hooks outside of it.

Another keeping it real pic attached! This is after we just got home from camping sooooo DW just did this a couple weeks ago and so far I totally love it and find it actually easier to tidy up than the closet space we had before. The space is open and clear where things go instead of a jumble behind the doors that got messy and cluttered because it was hidden away. Granted we also had 80’s mirrored hall doors and a shoe tray outside it so this really modernized our entry as a bonus.

Ours is definitely more utility than Pinterest decor type, which is what I personally wanted. Each wall has command hooks for the backpacks on one and the other has 4 dollar store baskets for hats, mitts, etc., one for each of us. The 5 yo likes seeing his stuff and can access it better so when we tell him to grab something he can and the novelty of the shoe rack is still new for him (sometimes). Mostly the problem is the 11 month old who loves to take shoes all over the house and make that messy. I think he loves that they are accessible now ha! But basically I just put the shoes back at night and it’s all there. Forces us to not have as much up here all year round too. Winter and summer stuff gets split up now and rotates. So far, I’m a big fan!

I love this idea but know it would always be a mess! And we already have limited closet space so I don’t know if I could get rid of one. I’d love a bench for getting shoes on though.

I put a couple command hooks by the front door at kid height for DS and in the winter I keep a basket by his coats with gloves, toques etc. This works pretty good and isn’t too messy.

@MrsSRS: I agree with your bench comment. We didn’t have this but we had a bench in our entryway for years and in theory it was to sit on while we put our shoes on. But it ended up collecting crap all the time (things I had to remember to take with me, purses, back packs, jackets, umbrellas, recycling, etc etc etc) and most of the time we couldn’t use it. And I’m a pretty neat person! But that bench was so tempting to put things on to deal with later.

Moved recently and got rid of the bench. I don’t miss it. And because we don’t have it I’m forced to put things away more frequently.