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Monday Motivation: We're Starting At The Front Door


This is this first post of 2011 that deals with decluttering and organizing our homes.   Since we're moving in an organized fashion, we'll start with the front door.


When people enter your home through your front door, what do they see first?  Piles?  Shoes?  Stacks of Papers?  Maybe you don't even have a real entrance, like a foyer, in your home. If you don't, can you improvise by placing a short bookcase or sofa table perpendicular to the door to make a mock entrance?


   (Here is a photo I found of a bookshelf that one family built in but you could also use a freestanding one as well)

Perhaps your family enters your home through the garage or back door.  That area needs to function as well. 

First impressions are important for guests, but think about you and your family too.  Does your family come home to a mess every day?  Do they have a place to put their belongings when they come home to roost?   That's what we'll work on today.

Here are steps to help you work on this:
1.  Stand at your front door and take a good hard look at the entrance to your home.  Ask yourself these questions. . .
     a.  Does my front door look welcoming?
     b.  Is this area too crowded to function properly?
     c.  What seems to cause the biggest mess in this area?

2.  Decide what activities need to be represented in this area.  Coat storage?  Shoe storage?  Key storage? 

3.  Check to see if you have a place for every activity.  Do you have a closet or hooks for coats?  A bench for shoes?  A hook or bowl for keys?

4.  Remove any items that aren't needed in the area and store somewhere else in your home (or even better, get rid of it).

5.  Look for things that will help this area function better.  Perhaps you have a small bench in your kitchen that can function as a place to sit and remove shoes.  Maybe a small table in your bedroom can be used to hold keys and the dog leash.  Window shoping might be needed to pick out a set of hooks to hold coats or a new door mat.  (tip:  hold off buying anything until you have weeded out and decluttered the area)

Today we're only looking at the function and "hardscape" of the entrance.  The rest of the Monday Motivations in January will be devoted to weeding out belongings and making the area function properly. 

Now. . . go forth. . . and organize!
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Comments

  1. AlexiaJanuary 10, 2011 at 2:05 PM

    I need a mat for my front door (no, still haven't gotten around to it *sigh*) The little ones are slipping on my wood floors now that snow is here! I'd love a bench too, I'm keeping my eye out for one when I'm in thrift stores.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The Cozy CapeJanuary 16, 2011 at 6:50 PM

    I so need to get organized. We have a very old house that has small closets and I'm at a loss! I'm sure there are ways to fix our problems that my eyes just don't see but I feel like our rooms (bedrooms especially) are overflowing. Eek!

    Off to organize that front room/entry.

    ReplyDelete

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