Well, a 24" door will swing out far. Might anyone hit his head? Depends how tall your family members are.

Regarding cubbie dividers...if you want to sit on your bench to put on shoes, don't have the dividers come all the way down to the bench. Or, alternatively, make the bench super deep. Or bench was 60" wide and I'm a 130 lb female, but I was always really uncomfortable sitting there to put on shoes, and only one person could sit at a time. New house, new bench, no dividers! Just hooks galore! :)

Do you have an inspiration picture?

is there a reason why you want doors on the top vs. open slots? Maybe with baskets. They would be hard to access without a ladder or tall step stool.

The bench is 6" deeper than dividers (20" bench, 14" dividers). It's not a ton but I don't want to go deeper since there's a door at the end of the row. Opening at the top rather than the side might not be a bad idea. The ceilings are 9' so they are quite high (no bumping heads) and would be used rarely. I was preferring the closed to open look just because I thought it was nice to break it up since the shelf below would probably have baskets. These were the inspiration photos.

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I really like your inspiration pictures. Now, I get what you are doing.

as pretty as that top section is, it's not very practical I'm afraid. I don't know how old your kids are but as they get older those top spaces are a great place to throw sports bags and basketballs and stuff like that instead of using the bench portion which will inevitably be used for book bags. The book bags get so heavy as they progress in school, you don't want them to be hung on your hooks. Besides that the hooks will be occupied with tons of stinky sweatshirts, lol. At least that is my experience.

if you want to use with your plan, I see no reason why your doors can't be used. Just insist on it and use two hinges. It is indeed pretty. Doing the seat portion in a dark color is smart! I did not and it is not great looking years later.

i love the idea of an open bench area as mentioned above since in my house no one uses their own locker and no one sits on the bench to put on their shoes.

Can you reduce the dividers and upper cabinets to 10" or so? Seems like you would be able to stand on the bench to get to the cabinets but the deeper they are the easier it will be to get stuff lost in the back.

sarahbr2- what did you end up doing and how did it turn out? I’m thinking of a very similar layout! Pictures?