A Little Closet Organization

As much as I'd love a real mud room or an entry way that looks like this, it just doesn't make sense in our house.  We don't have a mud room.  The garage door opens up to our playroom.  We have a foyer at the front door, but it doesn't make much sense to spend all the money on cutsie wall 'closets' when we have a generous sized coat type closet right around the corner in our dining room.

But this is what it has looked like for a very long time.  I tried to hang hooks on the side walls for the kids to hang their stuff on, but they weren't sturdy enough and came falling out with much use (except one).  So little ones with arms far to short to reach the hanging bar, just threw their coats and bags and shoes on the floor.  I admit it, I would shove it all back with my foot and just close the door to try and forget about the mess inside.

Well I finally decided enough was enough and came up with a plan.

This is the after.  And yes it's not exactly eye candy, but it works.  I would have loved to strip everything out and paint it a fun bright color, but there are other pressing projects that are more visible that I want to tackle.  So ignoring the ugly walls, I cleaned up the closet.  I finagled a way to get hooks up for the kids to use.  I took this small drawer caddy that I no longer am using in my sewing room and put our winter gear and the kids extra totes in it.  Up top I used crates from Walmart to store my extra totes and serious winter gear (for when we go skiing) and my horse riding gear (would REALLY love to use that stuff again...I have promised myself I would make time to do that again soon!!)

The girls have one side and the boys the other side.  There is a shelf above their hooks that holds fav drawing books, etc to take to church on Sunday mornings.

They have 2 hooks each and labeled.

These have worked like a charm!  I took some leftover wood that was used for a cub scout project back in Dec and painted them red.  Then I used stickers for their name and coated the whole thing in glossy mod podge.  Then I screwed the hooks in (not all the way as they were longer than the thickness of the board.  After that I used 2 nails to secure the boards to the wall and then finished screwing in the hooks.  Nice and sturdy and none of those icky screw anchors in my wall!

Now everyday, my wonderful kids come in from school and outings and hang their things up (after a few reminders for a couple of them).  :)

Not really pictured, but on a higher side shelf I have my electronics and a basket of their accessories and chargers.  So as to easily retrieve the proper charger for each, I labeled the cords with a little electrical tape and a sharpie.  :)