Entry Organization: The tragedy of no mudroom– Episode 092

Let’s talk about how to make your entry an organized oasis so that you had the things you needed as you leave and enter your home. I have always coveted a mudroom — but we’ve never had it, so how do I make it work? Let’s make it work.

Big thanks to our sponsor The Organized Home if you’re looking to organize the home you HAVE vs the home you WISHED you have The Organized Home is the one for you. Let me help you make it work!

Organizing Your Entry

In this episode

We’re talking about how much I wished I had a mudroom

Are you using your house to help support you during entrances and exits of your home.

What do you need when you leave the house?

My post on organization weakenesses.

How we deal with backpacks with our after school checklist

Other things that might interest you

Kitchen redesign episode

Bedroom Organization

5 Things for Easier Organizing

Producer: Drew Erickson

Check out my other household tips podcasts:

Check out all my podcasts:

Transcript

[00:00:00.240] – Hilary Erickson

Hey, guys, welcome back to the Pulling Curls Podcast. Today on Episode 92, we’re talking about the most dramatic thing when you’re in the theater, the entrances and the exits. Let’s untangle it.

[00:00:22.140] – Hilary Erickson

Welcome to the Pulling Curls Podcast, I’m Hilary, your curly headed host on the podcast where we untangle everything from pregnancy, parenting and home routines.

[00:00:30.180] – Hilary Erickson

I want you to know that there are no right answers for every family, and I find that simplifying my priorities is almost always the answer. It’s tangled, just like my hair.

[00:00:46.690] – Hilary Erickson

Hey, guys, before we get started, could you even review? it means so darn much, so darn much, get in there. Leave me a review. OK, here’s a little secret. I’m pretty sure I’m breaking a commandment here, but I have always wanted, like, that picture perfect mudroom. I wanted to walk into my house and have an area where I could put my purse and my sunglasses and my keys away in my own little cubby. I wanted a cubby, but I have never had that at my house.

[00:01:14.060] – Hilary Erickson

We have always walked directly into the kitchen from our garage. And so I’ve never had that picture perfect mudroom. And I get the feeling that a lot of other people don’t have the picture perfect mudroom. Now, I have seen a lot of people creating that awesome entry or exit area, and I’m 100 percent behind that. I have thought of so many ways that I could try and make that work in my house, but I have yet to figure it out. So, I don’t have a mudroom.

[00:01:37.760] – Hilary Erickson

But if you do, you can still apply these either way.

[00:01:42.080] – Hilary Erickson

Do you ever just feel like it’s unfair that some people can have company over at a moment’s notice? Their house is just super easy to clean up and they can relax on the couch with Netflix while you feel like you always have things to do around your house. that can totally be you. The organized home is all new in 2021.

[00:01:59.000] – Hilary Erickson

We’re talking about de-cluttering, zones, organization systems that actually work. We’ve got assignments and challenges. I hope you’ll join us. You can use coupon code untangled. Look for the Organized Home link in the show notes.

[00:02:11.870] – Hilary Erickson

What I think is really important about the entry is supporting yourself upon your exit or entrance to the home. Right? You want to have the things so that when you’re ready to leave, you are ready to go. And I especially like when you have little kids. Leaving the house can be such a big deal because you’ve got the diaper bag you need. Make sure you have wipes and diapers and a blanket and a pacifier and possibly a bottle and all those kind of things.

[00:02:33.650] – Hilary Erickson

Right. But do you have an area at your house? I want you to answer honestly in your head, in your car, wherever. That is supporting you upon those entrances and exits, because they can be really difficult even when you don’t have kids. Literally, I can’t remember to put a mask on, people. I remember to put the mask on, but I can’t remember to take it with me. So first off, what do you need when you leave the house?

[00:02:54.020] – Hilary Erickson

So the list I made for myself is I need my purse, I need my keys to the car. I need sunglasses because I live in Arizona and it’s so darn sunny here and I need a mask. Right. And so I have created systems and ways to hold these. Keep in mind, we don’t have any shelving that I can really use for this right around that area. We walk directly from our garage into our laundry room and we all of the laundry room storage is taken up by laundry room items.

[00:03:17.750] – Hilary Erickson

So and we don’t use our front door very much. We tend to come in and out of our garage. Luckily, though, the system can support you either way, even if you go out your front door. So for my purse, I decided to take an area of a shelf that’s in our living room, which is fairly close to where we come in and put my purse there. So that’s always going in the same spot. I tend to be as bad as my kids, which we’ll talk about later and just kind of explode when I get in the house.

[00:03:40.580] – Hilary Erickson

So it’s really important for me to have a spot where my purse always goes. So I’m not losing it. I don’t know if you’re the same as me, but it’s an issue. Keys are also an issue. In fact, I… One of my organization weaknesses is that I lose things like keys and so I actually have the tile. If you guys have seen those on my keys, I’ll put a link to the post about organization weaknesses in my profile.

[00:04:00.500] – Hilary Erickson

But I finally realized I just needed something like that for getting my keys. Oh my gosh, keys are expensive. Like if you get a new key anymore, that’s like 250 bucks. My husband jumped in a pool with his keys in his pocket once and I was unamused. But yes, so I needed my keys by the door. And I also needed a spot where they could return every single time. So even if my husband found them, he could stick it on the hook for me.

[00:04:20.870] – Hilary Erickson

Sunglasses. I needed a big bin of sunglasses because my kids also break them fairly frequently. Or they did when they were little. Honestly, it’s mostly me sitting on them in the car, but I needed a big bin of sunglasses that myself or my kids or whoever could grab sunglasses as we go out the door. And then I also needed hooks for masks so that we could hang them up after we wash them. Of course we wash them after we use them.

[00:04:42.050] – Hilary Erickson

OK, so I created ways to help hold those things. And some things that you guys consider is using shelves and other areas. Command hooks can be awesome for this. We have a little key holder that we’ve had at our house since my kids were little. So that works for our keys. But I had to put up command hooks for masks because it’s a great way to hold them so that they stay nice and clean and they’re easy to grab one at a time as we walk out the door.

[00:05:03.020] – Hilary Erickson

Also, my kids really wanted them separated into each specific person’s masks so we don’t overlap one person’s masks should not be another’s at our house. I’m not really sure why. Also using decorative baskets. So I just have a cute little basket on the front room table that holds my sunglasses and so it kind of hides it, although my friends do giggle with how many sunglasses I have. But people, they’re a necessity in Arizona. Now, there’s one more thing with the entry and exit is your kids.

[00:05:27.500] – Hilary Erickson

So whenever my kids would come home from school, they would just kind of melts, like the backpack would just slide off the lunch bag would slide off the water bottle, it all just like turns into a puddle at the front door, which it’s Arizona. They probably were a puddle a lot of the time, but it was really important that we drew the line that that was not OK. The backpack. I’m not saying the backpack can’t stay there.

[00:05:45.410] – Hilary Erickson

While you run to go pee, but the backpack needs to find its way back to your room eventually. And so for me, it’s really important to draw that line the kids need to take care of. Their backpack on their own. That’s not my job and we don’t have an area to hold backpacks, I thought of like seven million ways that they could put their backpack right there. But ultimately, especially because my kids are older now, they can take their backpacks to the room.

[00:06:05.030] – Hilary Erickson

And most often they have stuff in their backpack that needs to be used for homework, which is also done in their room. So that works for me. So if kids leaving stuff at the front door is really an issue for you, I would encourage you to maybe have a family meeting and just say this is this is a problem for me. It’s a problem for you guys. We are not leaving our stuff at the door anymore. And you need to take it to your room and be really firm on that.

[00:06:24.270] – Hilary Erickson

You know, you might have to let that backpack disappear for a little bit if that’s the case. But just be really clear that it’s not an area for melting. Or if you do melt, you got to come pick it back up within five minutes or so. So that’s your entry. The Organized Home has a whole entry section in it going on right now. I share what we’ve done to try and make our entry a little bit more usable because also by your entry, you kind of need a spot to maybe keep stuff to, you know, if your friend’s coming over to get cake pans or stuff like that.

[00:06:50.030] – Hilary Erickson

We needed an area to hold items like that, not to mention the six million political fliers we get. But that is a show for another day. So come check out the Organized Home. You can jump in for just a month. There’s no obligation to stay and the monthly price is really reasonable. So I hope I will see you in there. And I hope this is giving you some ideas for how to support you as you go in and out of your house.

[00:07:08.810] – Hilary Erickson

I think it’s really important that you support yourself as much because those can be hard times. So especially with little kids, especially with teens, especially forever.

[00:07:17.240] – Hilary Erickson

So support yourself. Thanks so much for joining us today. I hope we helped smooth out a few of the snarls in your life. We drop an episode every Monday and we always appreciate it when you guys share and review. Until next time, we hope you have a tangle-free day!