Tired of falling your shoes when you walk in the door? Tired of searching for umbrellas in vain? These organizational rules will help you transform your entryway from a tripping hazard zone to a sparkling model of efficiency.
1. Put Away Off-Season Items
The first rule for tidying up entryways is to consider seasonality. With thick winter clothes in the summer and sandals and a beach bag in the winter, there’s no need to mess up your precious entrance space.
Double-check your entryway, remove any items that are not out of season, and store them elsewhere. This will allow you to use your entries more efficiently and have a clearer idea of what needs to be stored there.
2. Subdivide the Space
Once you’ve cleared out all of your out-of-season items, it’s time to evaluate the available storage space. Large cabinets or deep shelves may seem like a good idea at first glance, but they can also be a shortcut to chaos.
It is better to divide the space and create smaller compartments where individual items can be stored and ordered. You can then assign one for each family member, or depending on the type of item – one for scarves, one for bags, one for shoes, and so on.
3. Share Storage Space
When the space starts to get messy, it can quickly escalate because everyone thinks the clutter belongs to everyone else, and no one is responsible for a messy pile of scarves, hats, or shoes.
To keep the space tidy, you need to share ownership of the space with each family member. The easiest way to do this is to assign a shelf or hook to each family member. This way, you can clearly see who’s keeping the space tidy and who’s to blame for the clutter.
You can’t do this for every item – for example, it might be neater to store all your umbrellas or shopping bags together – but for outerwear and shoes, it makes sense to give ownership.
4. Allocate Space Entrances for Mail and Keys
It’s one of the hardest areas of the house to tidy up because the first thing you have to do when you walk in from the outside is to take off layers of clothing and belongings. Each item needs a dedicated storage place to avoid small items piling up.
Keys, mail, umbrellas, take-out menus, pens, lip balm – take inventory of items that are usually placed on the entryway table and allocate a storage space for each item.
In addition to making the space look neater, this can also help you get out of the house faster. You’ll instantly know where to find your keys, wallet, and phone without having to frantically rummage through drawers full of clutter.
5. Don’t Underestimate How Much Shoe Storage You’ll Need
How many pairs of shoes do you own? This number is always higher than you initially thought, and when you multiply that number by the number of people in your household, it’s clear that you’ll need some enough storage space to keep all those shoes neat at busy entrances.
An upright shoe cabinet or shoe rack running along the hallway will help accommodate unruly shoes.
There are two ways to organize shoes – by type or by owner. Choose what makes more sense for you and stick to it, allocating a space for each pair of shoes that are suitable for the season. (If you follow the first step, the rest will be stored in a place where you can’t see the rest of the house.)
6. Bring It to the Top
In narrow hallways, you often have to go high to get extra space, as it’s usually impossible to give up floor space for deep cabinets. If you’re redecorating, this could mean investing in custom storage cabinets or getting creative with off-the-shelf solutions to expand existing storage space.
If your entryway cabinet doesn’t fully reach the ceiling, you can stack some large boxes neatly on top or add some small compartments on top.
Or, if you have a row of hooks or nails, add another row above or below the existing one to double the vertical storage space. You may need steps or ladders to reach nails or even shelves at height, but you can use these areas to store items that you don’t need on a daily basis.
7. Add a Phone Desk
Before cordless phones and cell phones, there was usually a dedicated space in the hallway to sit and make calls. Although it is no longer necessary to do this, as the phone can be made anywhere in the house, it is still necessary to bring back the phone table.
Not for the installation of a landline, but for having a dedicated place in the entrance hall to store the phone and charge, and to store all the chargers and cables neatly, just like in the entryway in California.