How my entryway works for me.

I'm including pictures today of my entryway.  I'm showing how simple it is.   How imperfect it is.  But I'm really happy with how well it works for my family of four.

We have a small coat closet to the right of the front door.  It's a workhorse.  I use an over the door shoe storage thing (has lots of pockets) to store bubble wands, sidewalk chalk, extension cords, gardening gloves etc.  We keep our winter coats and regular jackets in here.  Grown-up items are pushed to the side, the kids are in the middle, leaving space to see the items below real well.  

And the floor in this space has an organizer and on it I store batteries, tape, gum, tools, emergency candles etc.  I also store extra kleenex, toilet paper and paper towels here.  And that's not even mentioning the top shelf which stores a fan, winter hats, gloves, and scarves (organized of course).

But it's not my family's natural instinct to hang their coat up inside the closet when they get home.  Instead of expecting something that would never come to be, I have always had a coat rack of some kind here on this wall.  It's easy for everyone to keep their stuff off the floor.  About twice a month I put everything that is hanging into the closet so that it doesn't get packed and eventually stuff falls on the floor (including the coat rack).

My purse always goes on the barstool.  Sometimes my bag weighs a lot and I figure if it spends less time hanging, then the strap will  last longer.  For my oldest daughter I hung some heavy duty 3M temporary hooks.  I figured I could raise them higher the older she got.  

I use the blue bazket to keep a few other things, including the diaper bag, contained.  Now that I have another baby who requires hats and jackets I was out of space, esp. for when she's able to put her own things away.  So I stood in my little foyer trying to figure out how to use the space best.  There was little wall space left.  

But then I realized there was this underutilized wall in the little nook leading to my bedroom.  

This little nook was already storing some important papers.  I keep any gift certificates or future entertainment tickets here (along with some old but endearing photos).  And no one else would ever really see all the stuff hanging there except me when I left my room.

So I got this little pegboard out of the garage.  It wasn't being used and it's working great right now.  My 5 year old can reach it.  In the brown bag I even have a store return hanging on the peg board with a sticky note as a reminder.  

My favorite part of my entryway is this:
This is an old set of wood shutters I repainted.  Whenever any of us receives a card it goes here temporarily.  Only recently (when I was trying to make sure no little hands were all over my sunglasses) I realized it makes a good place to store glasses.  Once my 5 year old saw my glasses there she decided she needed to hang all of hers there.  Does it take away from the design aspect?  Yep.  Does it instill organization into my child's brain?  ABSOLUTELY!  She loves always knowing where to find her glasses.  And feels like it's partly her idea.  

So, this is my imperfect entryway that works.  My philosophy is not perfection.  It's what works.  What's good enough.  Based on the family's natural instincts.  It's hard enough being organized, there's no reason to make it difficult or fight our natural instincts.  

I hope this inspires you to think basic.  

To think simple.


No comments:

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...