Come to Order Monday: The Mudroom Cubbies

I have been working my way from the back of my house towards the front; I've already organized our laundry and mudroom bath. Today, I attacked the mudroom itself. Strangely, guests often tell me they are envious of my mudroom and the cubbies therein. It is ironic, because I used to think that simply having cubbies would make us organized. Truth be told, however, they are actually a big source of clutter. This is an area that requires a lot of weekly cleaning in addition to a big switch-over each season for changing clothing and activity needs.

Here is how they looked Monday Morning:

There are four of us; the last cubby is meant to be kept completely empty for guests. At this moment it was housing a bunch of random crap. Though I have been using cloth bags since the late 90's, I often forget then and come home with bags that later need to be recycled. My collection of plastic bags often fills the guest cubby along with items that need to go to Goodwill and goodness knows what else! Here, the other cubbies were overflowing with various coats and accoutrements. We keep vacillating between jacket and parka weather every other day, so we have left everything out. The kids also use their cubbies as "storage" for trinkets they bring home from birthday parties and school (though I have repeatedly asked them not to). You'll notice I also had some kid art on the exterior of the cubbies. My girls' sweet "days of creation" charts were there, but I moved them to another area of our home that is designated as a gallery for their work. Next I took everything out of the cubbies, organized the items on the top shelf into baskets, removed superfluous items, and wound up with this:

That will work for a few weeks, when I will have to do it again!