Creating A Landing Zone At Your Front Door.

You know the drill because it happens every day…your family walks in the front door and drops all their stuff instead of putting it where it might actually go. In most homes you can find keys, hats, gloves, shoes, bags, the mail all piled up on top of each other. It’s no wonder things get lost in the house! Well let me fill you in on a little secret – with a little effort and some training, you can get your entryway cleaned up and organized in no time. This, however, is not what you want it to look like:

Engineering Professor's Door
Creative Commons License photo credit: joguldi

Here is how we did it in our house…

Immediately upon entering my front door, there is a place for almost everything so that nothing gets lost. Keys go on the key rack hanging on the wall. Cellphones, spare change, and pocket lint go into the drawer of an old night stand right next to the door. Mail goes into a mail holder on top of the night stand. Shoes and boots go right onto the waterproof mat laid out next to the wall, and coats go on the coat rack behind the door. And after a while of working together to make sure we put our stuff in the right place every day, it has become a habit that just comes naturally. Now it feels weird to NOT put everything away right upon entering the house! So if your family has a hard time staying organized by the front door, and your foyer fills up with clutter each evening, start putting together a landing zone for all your stuff:

1. Hang a key rack by the door up on the wall.
2. Put a small table with a drawer underneath it.
3. Lay down a mat that is dedicated to just your shoes.
4. See if you can fit a coat rack (or better yet, start using the coat closet if you have one) next to or behind the door.

After a little bit of training, it will be easy to keep your front entrance organized and clutter free!

4 Comments
  1. January 26, 2009
  2. January 26, 2009
  3. January 26, 2009
  4. January 26, 2009

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