Organizing Tips for the Entryway

By Lisa Montanaro

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The entryway. Depending on your home, it can be an entire mud room with lots of space, a formal foyer at the front of your house, a breezeway from the garage, or a portion of a hall in a small apartment. Regardless of where it is, or its size, if it is organized, your homecoming will always be less stressful, not to mention that you may actually want to have visitors over!

The following are some tips to help make your entryway more organized:

• If you have a front or back hall closet, use it for everyday outer wear for the current season only. Add a shelf, a shoe rack and any other organizing products that help contain clutter. If there is room, you can even add a hanging shelf system (a canvas one will work fine) for accessories to be handy, such as hats, umbrellas, scarves, and the like.
• If you are not lucky enough to have a closet in your entryway, then you need to create the storage system by using cubbies, pegs, a bench, a shoe drying mat, umbrella stand, hanging mail and key slot, etc. Make this your launching and landing pad for outerwear, knapsacks, briefcases, keys, etc.
• Accessories go in containers (baskets, bins, or any other type of container): gloves, hats, scarves. Organize by family member or by accessory category, whichever makes the most sense for your home and family.
• This may be a good place for a "return and repair center" if you have space. It is where you keep items that need to be returned to the store, the library, or to rightful owners that you borrowed them from. Likewise, you can store items to be repaired here so that you are reminded to grab them as you head out the door.
• You may opt for a hall table if you have room for a mail, key, wallet, and cell phone area.
• Put all keys in a small container and label the keys, either with a permanent marker or key tabs, so that you know what each key corresponds to. As a security measure, you may want to use a code instead of labeling the keys "back door," "garage," etc.

Try to implement some of these tips so that the entryway is less cluttered and says, "Welcome" when you come home!