My Entryway Closet revisited

Hey gals, so today I’ll show you the rest of my entrance way and how I keep it organized. Just for interest sake though let’s go back and take a look at a picture from last year:

And here it is today:

Okay so not that much different but it amuses me to see the basket shuffle in action :) Who doesn’t love a good basket shuffle? It’s fun to try new configurations to see what can be improved on. I’ve been able to add some pretty wicker baskets this time (they became available from my son’s room when we took down his change table). Of course I’d love it if all the baskets in this closet were decorative ones because the doors are left open so often but that will have to be something that comes gradually over time. Believe me, a good wicker basket on sale is worth the wait! Finding them at the thrift store is even more sweet.

Let’s take a peak inside one of those baskets now. This is where I store entryway essentials like chapstick, hairspray for last minute touch-ups, tissues, change jar, etc..

The other wicker basket holds my purse.

The very top long shelf of the closet organizer holds our extra bags like our carry-ons for when we travel, that kind of thing.  Things we don’t use too often.  The top white basket in the first cubby holds all my hubbie’s ball caps, the next cubby basket is what I call my entrance way junk drawer (can we say catch all!) and the clear container under that holds all our sunglasses.

We try and leave the hanging space on the right free for our guest’s coats when they visit.

Here’s a better view of the entire entryway:

I got the little hat tree by the door through some mail order catalogue ages ago and it makes it so easy for the kids to throw their hats on when they come in the door. No more picking them up off the floor!

So that’s it folks, doors closed.

I hope you enjoyed your peek into my entrance way today. Now I’m off to see if any more of my baskets want to dance with me :)

Backpack Station revisited

If you have school age kids then you have backpacks to deal with. I definitely recommend having a designated backpack station to keep them contained and organized in one central location. I like having my kid’s backpacks right by the front door so they can drop them in their designated space as soon as they come in from school making them easily accessible on the way out. I first posted about our backpack station here.

Since that time though my backpack station has evolved somewhat to accommodate a third child and more shoes! This is why organizing in an ongoing process, circumstances change and we need to be able to adjust with them in order to keep one step ahead of the chaos.

Here is what it use to look like:

And here it is now:

Again just a little change but it makes a big difference in terms of my sanity. These stacking shoe racks are awesome and fairly inexpensive. They can be purchased at most department stores.

Do you have a backpack station? I would love to put together a post of backpack station pictures if there is interest. If you’d like to be featured please email me a picture along with your blog address and I’ll get busy :)

Tomorrow I’ll post how my front closet has changed since last year. Gee exciting times around here or what LOL.

Related Posts:

My front door basket storage

Back Pack Rack

Back of door storage

I’m Outta Here Shelf

Menu Plan Monday ~ August 18th

Hello my happy fellow menu planners!! Guess what? After considering all your comments last week, I decided to bite the bullet and make the Greek Spaghetti last week despite the number of ingredients. I’m happy to report that it was well worth the effort and it was delicious!! The only thing I didn’t like about it was the celery but my husband didn’t seem to mind, go figure….oh and I only used one package of spinach :)

It did take a little extra time to make but it was a great recipe for my daughter (11) to help me with. Her job was to gather and measure all the ingredients for me while I assembled. We made an awesome team!

Speaking of kids cooking I got a lovely email the other day introducing me to a new site called Jr Chefs of America. It’s all about kids teaching other kids how to cook by video. It’s a great idea for getting kids excited about being in the kitchen and inspiring them to cook up some delicious recipes for themselves. So far they have eight recipe videos up but add a new one every other week. Check it out!

I’d also like to recommend two other dishes from last week. The Bruschetta Chicken and the Southwest Lasagna Rolls were so good and quick to prepare as well. I used gluten free noodles in the lasagna rolls and you couldn’t even tell!

Thanks to everyone who participated last week we reached OVER 300 Menu Plan Monday participants!!  So very exciting!!!

Here is what we’ll be eating in my neck of the woods this week:

Monday: Zesty Corn Quesadillas

Tuesday: Hamburgers on the bbq served with caesar salad

Wednesday: 5 Minute Southwest Layered Salad

Thursday: Leftover buffet

Friday: Chicken Pesto Pizza

Saturday: Asian Pork Tenderloin

Sunday: If you can find it, you can eat it cause this momma isn’t cooking :)

WHAT’S ON YOUR MENU?

Menu Plan Monday banners and guidelines are here. Thanks for participating!!

Fave Five for Friday

My lovely friend Susanne of Living to tell the Story has asked us what are our five favorite things from this past week are so I thought I’d play along. Here is my list of five things that made me happy this week:

School supplies!

My attempt at decorating with beautiful (yet fake) gerber daisies. I’ve added bunches around my house. I absolutely heart daisies!

(I always kill real plants so this is the next best thing)

A whole slew of beach trash books from the thrift store. Perfect for light summer reading! My girlfriend that owns the store hand selected these for me, so sweet.

This fort in the basement has kept my kids occupied for hours this week!

Finally this beautiful necklace that arrived in the mail from Etsy seller, marymnoel, this week. I spent hours searching for just the right thing to hold and collect business cards when I attend the Professional Organizer’s Conference in November. I wanted to be able to quickly exchange cards with someone without having to rummage through my bag each time. Maybe it’s dorky, I don’t know, I think it’s brilliant. Making life easier (even in the little things) makes me very very happy!

Have a great weekend everyone :)

List Plan It plus giveaway….

Know what the ultimate tool for brain dumping is?  Find out here.

Organizing your mudroom

Today I’d like to welcome guest blogger, Beverly Coggins from 1-2-3..Get Organized. Beverly is a Professional Organizer in Ohio and you might even remember her from the review I did not too long ago of her fabulous organizing mini books. Welcome Bev!

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I love mudrooms! They corral clutter before it enters your home! If you don’t have a mudroom, you can even create one in your garage.

Whether your mudroom is inside your house or in the garage, the idea is the same – you want to have a dumping ground as your family enters the house. Start with pegs or hooks to hang backpacks, briefcases, coats, scarves, etc. Add a bench with storage to sit on while taking off shoes. A chair will suffice, too.

The bench can house sports equipment if you have athletes in the house. Or choose another receptacle for sports equipment. And finally, shoe storage – a shoe rack, shelves, etc. A rug from the bench or chair to the door is a nice touch, if your mudroom is in your garage. If the members of your family are slipper wearers, they could keep them in the mudroom and slip into them after removing their shoes.

By creating such a mudroom, your house doesn’t look like it has exploded when family members come home. It takes a little training to get everyone to put things on hooks or in the shoe or athletic storage, but it is worth the effort! Every few days, have a shoe exchange where everyone picks up an armload of their shoes and takes them to their closets.

Whoever invented mudrooms was ingenious!

photo courtesy of dennace

MPM nearly reaches 300!

Updated: Woohoo, yippee yay!  You girls are the best, we are now sitting at OVER 300 participants!  Congratulations to #259, Jennifer who won my spontaneous giveaway!  Thank you again to all of you that participate each week as well as to those of you who are new.

WOW, today we almost set a record with Menu Plan Monday! As far as I know we haven’t gone past 300 participants yet. Tonight it stands at 296! Woohoo, that’s a lot of ladies getting organized my friends. I love it! If you’ve been thinking about joining us it’s never too late, in fact I’d be thrilled if you’d consider it this week to help bring us over the 300 mark. If we reach that number by tomorrow (Aug 12th) at noon I’m going to select one lucky participant at random to send a nice little surprise to.

Way to go ladies, well done!!!

An example of container magic…

Pam, a reader (who doesn’t blog), sent me these before and after pictures of her newly organized cupboard and I was so happy when she said I could share them with you.

Would you rather find something in all this mumble jumble:

Or in this lovely containerized space?

Now that’s what I call an investment in sanity!!

Menu Plan Monday ~ August 11th

Hi all! I don’t know how many of you watch Jon & Kate Plus 8 but I was watching it the other day and she made the comment that if you have to use a recipe you aren’t a real cook. I had to laugh at that because as most of you know I use a recipe for almost every meal and in my case dinner would be pretty tasteless if I didn’t use a recipe. If you ask me I’d say that makes me a pretty smart cook, so there Miss Kate!

Have you ladies ever heard of Hungry Girl? I just bought her cookbook and it looks pretty good! It’s full of recipes and survival strategies for guilt-free eating in the real world. You can also find many of her recipes on her website as well as in the newsletter if you sign up for it. I’m not affiliated in any way, I just like a good low-fat recipe when I see it. In fact I’ll be trying one of these recipes this week on Saturday. I LOVE breakfast for dinner….yum yum!

Just a quick note to ask you to please remember to put in spaces when you write your name into Mr. Linky. No spaces causes me the columns to go all wonky. More details here, thanks!

Monday: Fajitas

Tuesday: Bruschetta Chicken served with new potatoes and broccoli

Wednesday: Southwest Lasagna Rolls (missed from last week)

Thursday: Leftover buffet

Friday: Greek Spaghetti (I’m on the fence on this one…that’s a lot of ingredients, what do you think?)

Saturday: Flap-tastic! (from Hungry Girl)

Sunday: If you can find it, you can eat it

WHAT’S ON YOUR MENU?

MPM banners and guidelines can be found here.

Let’s bust a move on our entryways….

Well here we are into August already and moving on to getting our entryways and/or mudrooms organized. Before I jump into that though I have some unfinished business to clear up from the previous two months…the prize of course! Thank you to everyone who entered in either June (playroom) and/or July (bathroom), it was a great success. I have gone ahead and selected one lucky winner (via random.org) to win the prize package from Organize Magazine. That person is:

Thea from I’m a Drama Mama!!

Congratulations Thea!

Alrighty then, now we are moving on. Those that participate in either August (entryway) or September (office) will be eligible to win a most awesome prize package from The Organize It Mom! valued at $60.00. If you’ve not heard of The Organize It Mom! products be sure to read my review here. Very cool!

The entryway is the first room you see when you come into your home and whether you have a big one or one on the smaller side you are sending a message to everyone who enters (including yourself) about the nature of your home. When you walk in your front door does it say welcome to those who enter? Do you see a chaotic scene with shoes and coats thrown about? Do you find yourself tensing up as you maneuver your way around obstacles dropped at the door? Do you find yourself wanting to turn around and leave again?

What would you rather it say?

Having an organized entryway is important to me as it is to my husband. Because I know this I always try to make an effort to tidy up the entrance way before my hubby comes home from work even if the rest of my house is in chaos around me at the time. I want him to walk in and at least have that first impression of peacefulness and serenity. I want to set the right tone to welcome him home. That goes for my friends as well.

Having said all that I know that these front entrance ways are rarely big enough for all they need to encompass. Gosh we need room for the backpacks, the hats and mitts, the coats, the keys, the sunglasses, the shoes, the boots, the purses, an I’m Outta Here Shelf, the umbrellas, the wallets, etc. The list goes on and on. Let’s take it one step at a time. Start with your plan. Make a list of everything you need to house in this area and then set about finding designated areas for them. If you have a small space this may require some thinking outside of the box, a little more firmness in the purging and a little more creativity but it can definitely be done. There is a system that will work for your family.

Do you want to get tackling the shoes that seem to multiply overnight? I did a post some time ago on shoe storage solutions for small spaces that you might find helpful.

And of course many of you will remember my absolute favorite mudroom found over at Lisa’s of Take 90 West. Love, love, love it!!

I’ve also got one reader who has already completed her front entryway with a simple shoe solution and it looks great. Check out her site, Roots & Wings, for some inspiration!

Got a burning entryway question? Fire away in the comments. Have fun!!