for those of you that don't have a mudroom, foyer, etc...

[bu's mama]

what do you do with your outside stuff? The house I'm in now has a front door that opens into the living room. I hate this. I feel like I need a place to put stuff down when I come in & it always feels so cluttered here. We also try not to wear shoes in the house, but where to put them (I have a basket for Hannah & usually just put mine to the side)?

There is no closet (anywhere on the first floor) so I put a bench with hooks on the back for coats, a little cabinet with the dog's leash & bags & a key hook on the wall. What else can you do...do you hang coats in everyone's rooms? What about book bags or the pool bag (we go to the pool 1-2x/week)? I have some shelves up right now, but again I hate it. It's not so bad now that winter is over, but hats & scarves & boots, I can't see keeping them in our bedrooms upstairs.

Just looking to see what other people do.

[counterGOPI]

good question!!! i too dont have one and cant get ppl to remove their sjoes b/c of it. so annoying b/c we are a shoe free home!

[LEAW]

Our front door opens to the living room too, but we almost always use the back door. There is an open space in the kitchen where we have a bench (to help with the shoe removal) and the bench has baskets for winter accessories, dog stuff, etc. (I suppose the pool bag could live there too).

We also keep a coat tree, right now it's in the living room, but it really looks out of place. I'd like to move it near the bench in the kitchen, it'd be between the bench and the fridge, so you could grab your coat, sit down to put on shoes, and keep on the same direction out the door.

You can get a small doormat (like 12x16) for big people shoes next to the front door, and if they aren't everyday shoes (like dress shoes or rain boots) then they need to be put away as soon as they are dry, cleaned up, etc. and dress shoes can be taken off and walked to the bedroom/closet right away.

We keep all of our off-season coats on a portable closet rack in the basement, along with the snow pants, rain gear, etc.

If I have time during the day (haha) I move slippers to the back bench so that there is something to put on when you take off your shoes. Dh is much more likely to take off his shoes if there is something to put on. I prefer barefoot (but I go barefoot outside too)...

[smeta]

First of all, I have to say DH and I dream of adding on a mud room to our house!!

Our front door opens into our living room too, but we do have a closet right there. Also, our stairway is right by our front door, so we hung up three strips of hooks to hang coats, bags, winter stuff. One hook strip is low enough for the kids to hang their coats up. We have a door on our stairway, so we are not always looking at this clutter!

[RyvreWillow]

We have a big shoe "bucket." Hats and scarves get thrown into a big basket, and alas, the coats, jackets, and bags ended up piled on top of our old-fashioned record player/stereo thing, or the floor behind the couch. In the spring i box up the coats, hats, etc. and find a place in the bedroom to stack them (we have bedroom closets, but they're very small).

[nikirj]

My parents have this situation in their house. What they did is to get a square wicker hamper for each person. Your belongings go in there. They even had one for my family when we lived nearby and visited often. So you walk in the door, put your shoes in the basket, put your backpack/diaper bag in the basket (keys and phones go on a shelf above the basket), and go inside. Their entry used to be hugely cluttered but it always looks beautiful now. The only problem is that they have to keep on top of cleaning out those baskets, or they get nasty...baking soda on the bottom has helped (they are a very athletic family and shoes often return a little dirty and very sweated-in). The baskets are in a row under a window just as you come in the door and it looks attractive as well.

[bu's mama]

Thanks for the ideas. I think I'm having a hard time just because I hate the setup so much so I won't be happy with anything, ykwim. Maybe I'll post some pix to get some input to see if it really does look that bad. I've also been thinking about buying a big armoire/closet type thing & putting it where I have the shelves. I really like being able to put things *away* & not see them, if that makes sense.

[MaryLang]

I put a room dividing screen in the living room when you walk in the door, it acts as a sort of mudroom. I added some decorations to it, silk ivy wrapped around the top. I have a rug just the size I need for the "mudroom" and keep shoes in baskets. I also have a coat rack and key rack on the wall.

[srain]

One thing we've done before (doesn't work in this house, unfortunately) is create a foyer by putting a bench and coatrack right in front of the door. it blocks the entrance to the house and you have to go around it to enter the rest of the room. That slows people down enough so they sit down and take off their shoes.

[Glover_Girls]

My last two apartments opened into the livingroom. In the last place I used a coat rack thing with a bench that opened for storage. I placed it right inside the door with a mat in front of it for shoes. I also had a basket for mittens, hats, etc. When it was real snowy, boots and shoes were left in the hallway.

In this place, I do have a closet just to the right of the door so coats and shoes are stored in there. I also have a big mat on the floor inside the door to cover the carpet. I do hang our everyday jackets on the doorknobs (it's only the two of us anyway) and I have a credenza thing along a wall by the door which has a bowl for my keys and also tends to accumulate stuff coming in and going out like my purse, library books, etc. I've accepted that it's just never going to be decluttered! And like the other place, on snowy and muddy days, the shoes stay in the hall.

[momto l&a]

for those of you that don't have a mudroom, foyer, etc...

We live in the country so add to the normal stuff you have living in town mud, play shoes, play boots, good shoes/boots. Good coats and play/work coats.

We are planning on enclosing in our front porch to make a mudroom. Will be nice to have our living room neater from all the footwear and outerwear a family of 5 requires for living in the country

[mfp02]

Our front door pretty much opens into our LR as well. So we bought something similar to this. It works so well. Ours has a bin/storage thing at the bottom. All shoes go in there. Then we can hang coats, put stuff on top of it (keys, whatever) as well.

[Bearsmama]

We have a front door that opens onto our hallway, but no mudroom. I have an old bench that I store the shoes under, and DH made two racks with hooks for coats, jackets, bags--one for the kids, one for us. We have an umbrella holder in the corner, so we kinda made a space for a mudroom/entryroom area. I've also seen those boot tray things (sometimes made of rubber, some made of this copper-like metal) which I think would be good for wet shoes, too.

BTW, the rack with hooks is just wood cut down to size with nice hooks drilled into it, painted the same color as our walls.

[RiverSky]

Jackets are kept in each person's own bedroom closet but I had shoe shelves inside the door of the garage. We walk in the front door, walk a short way then open the garage door and store the shoes in there. It really helps with clutter. We also have a hallway table with drawers to help hide things like keys, mail, other stuff brought into the house, and baskets and boxes on top and below for other storage.

[princessoflove]

We all leave our shoes at the front door,and I collect them and take them to the garage. It is a little extra work for me, but it keeps the living room from getting cluttered.

[jane-t-mommy]

Our front door also opens into the living room, we put a set of hooks on wall beside the door, furthest from the living room side, and I bought a big foot stool type thingie (we call it the green thing) that opens up and we store all the seasonal stuff in there (mittens, hats, scarfs, snowpants, etc, or summer gear) it has been a fabulous addition. I also dream of a mud room someday. And bedrooms that I can make a bed in without getting a concussion from the low eaves....but that's another thread...LOL

[Nibor]

The front door opens into the living room in my house too. I have a low (hip height or so?) cabinet that is next to the door (it makes sort of a 3 or 4' entry way) that keeps bags, shoes, etc. There are some family photos on top of the cabinet and mail goes there, etc.

[MacKinnon]

We have a row of hooks for frequently used coats and a boot tray that we bought at Home Depot. In the winter we keep a basket for mittens over there as well. The door swings back against the wall that the hooks are on and there isn't room for a bench or anything like what mfp02 suggested. We keep all extra coats/snow pants/etc. in our laundry room closet or our bedroom closets (also very small).

[wonderwahine]

we are in a small apartment, and theres only a 5X10 strip of linolium at the front door, if our shoes are really muddy, we take them off and leave them there to dry, then knock off the dirt outside and keep them in our rooms or in the little area we set up near the kitchen counter for shoes and umbreallas. as for coats etc, they either go in our rooms or on the couch lol.

[SugarAndSun]

Originally Posted by MaryLang

I put a room dividing screen in the living room when you walk in the door, it acts as a sort of mudroom. I added some decorations to it, silk ivy wrapped around the top. I have a rug just the size I need for the "mudroom" and keep shoes in baskets. I also have a coat rack and key rack on the wall.

I have seen this done with an old (as in very old, chipped paint, artsy looking... not worn out Anderson or something) window handing from the ceiling by chains. It looked awesome. If you paint, you could even do a painting on the glass.