Hi there! I hope you're not quite sick of my entryway just yet. I shared the pretty last week, but I want to talk a little bit more about a part that's at least as exciting, for me: the function. I decided to do this area for the One Room Challenge not only because it was fugly - and it was - but because it was really failing us as a family. This tiny narrow hallway does have a coat closet, but it had become crowded and overwhelming, and getting in and out the door inevitably resulted in log jams and yelling and giant deposits of paraphernalia. If you don't believe how much of a mess it really was, allow me to regale you with a before pic. Actually, allow me to regale you with lots of pics, and lots of detail. And then, after this, no more entry talk for a while. Promise.

Holy cow, it's even worse than I remembered. The chief problem, as it so often is, is that we were trying to do too much with this closet. It held our shoes, outerwear, umbrellas, sunscreen, diaper bags, recycling, car seats, returns, bags, workout gear, and more. That, my friends, is too much. I had also tried to house all that stuff with a couple stacked benches and shelves that we had, which were just too big for the closet, so they took up all kinds of room.

I started where any organization project demands you start: Thinking critically about how you use the space and keeping only the things related to that use. In this case, I decided that we need all the outdoor stuff, the recycling, the baby and kid gear, and the car seats here.

Once I knew what I had to keep in here, I had to re-evaluate the way in which I was going to store it. I started off with these metal racks, which were perfectly sized to fit length-wise into the closet and leave some room in the middle. From there, I used a bunch of these Ikea storage bins to hold various goods.

On the right, the bins hold outdoor toys, reusable shopping bags and canvas totes, hats, and returns. (I return a lot. Both things I didn't have time to try on in the store, and the things people leave here, or which we inadvertently lift from AirBnBs... so having a holding cell for that stuff is important). On the left, I have all our recycling tubs. This part is important. We recycle the bulk of our stuff through the city, but we actually have a bunch of stuff that we specially stream, including plastic bags and Terracycle goods that get recycled at our grocery co-op, the coffee pods we schlep to Manhattan to recycle at the Nespresso store, fabric our local farmers market collects, and the toiletry kits Bret collects on his frequent international flights, which we donate to a local shelter for transient people. Again, I need a place to store all that stuff!

These big bins, sorted by type, are working really, really well. From this angle, you can also see the coat rack I'd hung on the side wall for overflow outerwear, and the stroller I hung on a heavy-duty Command hook. The stroller is the lightest I could find, at under 7 pounds, so the Command hook works on this concrete wall. Finally, that blue bench/toolbox is in the closet now (I had had it outside in the hallway, but it made it feel cluttered) holding our laundromat supplies.

Our over-the-door organizer had been doing a fine job, but it needed to cleaned up and I needed to label everything. So I did that - and it's been great. We've been using it like this for several weeks now, and it's stayed looking like this, which is just a huge coup. That's how you know you've done it right, right?

Then, on the outside of the closet, my attempt at a landing zone was one big womp womp: The coat rack was too small and too high to serve all the members of our family, the high chair I propped West in while we dressed was too big for the space, and there was no space for things like mail, to-go cups and reminders.

So, I fixed it. Our narrow shelf is perfect for storing my huge iced coffee while I get shoes on everyone, and the coral basket is perfect for holding my phone. Crazy as it seems to me, I didn't have a go-to spot for my phone until now, and that's a life-changer! I've shaved minutes off our exit time by not having to hunt under couch cushions for my phone every time it's time to leave. (Those roses were on their way to Lou's teacher, and I may or may not have chosen a color that I loved for the hallway pics).

A couple more tiny things you can see in the above pics that are making this zone pretty perfect. I have a boot tray in the closet that I can slide out from underneath one of the storage racks to hold wet shoes when it's raining. I also hung some spare 's' hooks on the hanging rod in the closet to hold any extra stuff - guest coats, shopping bags, etc.

I also now store my busy pouch and diaper bag pouches in the pink straw bag in the hallway. It's cute, easily accessible, and frees up room in the closet.

I also shared last week our newly functional sliver of chalkboard wall, which, adorned with some spruced-up thrifted baskets and pretty pics, is a lovely way to enter the hallway and a perfect spot for the mail and library books that used to float, untethered, around the house.

All this is awesome. But you might have noticed that something is missing. Where are all our shoes? We're a shoes-off house, and getting through the door, through this funnel of a hallway, while we're each painstakingly removing our shoes and maybe trying to replace them in the coat closet, was a comedy of errors every. single. time. Our clothes closets in the back don't really have room for our shoes, and storing them back there makes for a two-step putting away process anyway, which is a sure recipe for failure. So where to put them?

Here, that's where. This is a little unorthodox, as these built-ins are in our dining area. But, thanks to Marie Kondo-ing my way through our apartment for the last several months, these shelves were largely empty. That's right: I had actual empty shelves in my house. I resisted the urge to thrift my way back to capacity, and instead realized that this was the perfect spot to hold our shoes. It's right by the door - but it's not in the hallway. You can come in, kick off your shoes, pick them up and exit the hallway to put them away, thereby making room for the people behind you to file in. It's freaking incredible. I have not, one time, had to ask Lou to put away her shoes since we put them here. It's like magic. Couple that with the serendipitous fact that these shelves, beefed up with some shoe racks I already had, fit our shoes perfectly. Even my semi-ridiculous collection.

There's even extra room for our games and such. It's pretty awesome. I'll probably grab one or two more shoe racks to maximize space (Can't lie: My heels are still under the bed, and my riding boots are in my clothes closet, and it would be great to have everything here). Meanwhile, please ignore the dark bookshelves. They're on their way out, literally, and I've just been cramming things onto them until they're ready for their new life. I'll have more on that soon!

So, that's everything you never wanted to know about my entryway. By figuring out what we needed in here and carving out a space for all of it, we've finally landed on a solution to this narrow, over-worked space. Thanks for following along, and I'll see you tomorrow!