Our first step in this process is to organize the entry or "foyer" in our home. After all this is the first thing that everyone sees when they walk into our house. With so many kids and our busy lifestyle, our foyer is a mess! There were shoes, coats, jackets, umbrellas, sweatshirts from all of the kids that would get strewn everywhere.
The entry of our house is way to small to keep all eight of our "going out" things together. We had to come up with a better solution.
We have a space in our house that is completely wasted. Realtors like to call it a "sun porch". I like to call it a dumpy area that we never go into that stores some of our remodeling remnants. This place was bad!! It had green '80s astro turf and the roof leaked badly. I patched up the roof several months ago thinking it could eventually be a useful space. Don't get me wrong, there is still so much more we have to do to get it ready for prime time, but now that it is dry, it will make an excellent mud room.
Here is a picture of the rough plan.
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| Here is a very bad picture of the plan we have sketched out |
That is exactly what our kids need. A MUD room! Four boys and one little girl that could beat up any boy make a big mess! So we are converting our sun porch to a mud room From sun to mud, sounds glamorous doesn't it? No, no, no, this is my wonderful life, you can't have it! :)
So, first the clean out. That was a Waste Management Bagster and a Saturday afternoon. There was a lot of help from my hot wife and little girly. It was not fun, but we accomplished fairly quickly. We can now walk in the mud room! Next, cut out the 80's astro turf. I felt like Nolan Ryan walking on that stuff, that is the only reason I will miss it.
Next, we purchased some shelves much like these and some crates to stack on the shelves. Every child has their own crate to store their shoes. We also have crates for hats and gloves and other winter type clothes. We have another bin for shoes to grow into, the hand me downs that we are saving for the smaller kids. Another crate for jackets that are not in use. Yet another crate for our wonderful pet cat Moe. It is not big enough to store his attitude, but that is another story. We also added several hooks for coats and backpacks for everyday kid living.
We are planning a small bench for the kids to sit on while tending to their shoes. We plan for the bench to have even more storage. We are still working on what else we can organize out there. Comments/suggestions are appreciated.
Here is a picture of the work in progress...
Next (in the future) we have to scrub and paint the concrete floor and replace the entry door and lock with one of the combination deadbolts the older kids can use. Then long term, we need to replace the siding and the windows. One project leads to another! It feels great, we are making progress and simplifying our lives. Do you have some organization projects in your future? Please support our blog and check out my favorite place to shop and get ideas for storage and organization here.
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