Wednesday, January 23, 2013

What Works Wednesday: Winter Gear Storage (feat. The Corner of Truth!)

So here's a confession for you. While I feel like I have good organizational ideas to share, sometimes it makes me feel like a fraud to have a cleaning/organization blog because, just like most people, my house is often messy and DISorganized! I seriously live in fear that my real-life friends will find out I have a blog like this and just stare at me in disbelief. But I really loved the recent Confessions of Christmas post at House of Hepworths, and had the urge to incorporate something similar. So stay tuned at the end of the post.

But first.... what works. We live in Alaska, which means a constant influx of winter gear. Like, duplicates and triplicates (at least) of everything, for all 5 family members. Because of that, we store winter gear in a few different places. One of them is this bucket by the front door. While I'd love to have it all up and put away, this works for us because it's easy to scoop off the floor and toss in there, and easy to bend down and grab a hat for someone on our way out the door. It works because it's easy. It's very accessible for the kids - they can easily grab stuff and put stuff away.

So the second half of my "What Works Wednesdays" post is going to be a picture of something that isn't working for me, very near in proximity to the first picture. It's going to be called The Corner of Truth. Dun dun dun! I'm always entertained when I try to take pictures for this blog and strategically try to crop out messiness, since cleaning and organization is a focus of my posts. But my purpose in posting The Corner of Truth is twofold. One, I really would love to get some ideas from others about things that are not working for me. And two, I think honesty on a blog is refreshing. So, for the first Corner of Truth feature, here is the bookcase, seen on the far right side of the picture above.
NOT working. We have a few fabric bins - one holds computer paper, one holds stuff for the Wii, and one I think has more winter gear. It doesn't normally look THIS bad - I had a bunch of Christmas stuff on it, and when we put away the Christmas stuff, I just kind of threw the stuff back in that goes there. Pretty, right? With backpacks and my husband's hockey gear all around! So this is what I was trying to keep out of my lovely first picture! Ha ha. Should I just get rid of the bookcase? I'm kind of tempted to. Having it right by the front door makes it kind of a natural dumping ground for stuff. I'm challenging myself to get it put back together by next week's post, and see if I like it any better.


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2 comments:

D said...

Maybe you could take out one of the shelves and put in hooks for backpacks? I say either repurpose it so it's an organized dumping ground or get rid of it. :) I'm hoping to create an area by my garage door for shoe and coat and backpack mess. I want to make those milk create seats to store shoes and hats in and as a place to sit and put shoes on. Then hooks above that for backpack and coat. :)

Katie said...

D, I LOVE the idea to take out a shelf and put in hooks for backpacks! And I could put some fabric or paint on the back.... Hmmm... my mind is spinning now! And now my husband is over there examining the bookcase - he says that's his project for tomorrow! Thank you so much for commenting!