Have I ever shown you the inside of this hutch?
It’s part homework station, part holding area for a few of my husband’s books that he uses downstairs.
Instead of putting what’s expected in each area of your home, pay attention to how your family uniquely uses your home. Then, put stuff where you actually use it.
What do you not put where it belongs?
Be sure to visit the other 31 dayers::Life With My 3 Boybarians, Reluctant Entertainer, The Inspired Room, Remodeling This Life, Chatting at the Sky, Balancing Beauty and Bedlam, My First Kitchen, over the next 31 days. Want to read all the Less Messy Nests posts? Click here.
Great tip! My husband gets up really early in the mornings for work and puts his shoes and socks on in the family room so he doesn’t wake me. His sock drawer is in an ottoman in the family room.
This is definitely the case in my kitchen. Until recently my jams were under the sink because that was closest to where I made toast. My flour/sugar etc are in a drawer under the oven as that is closest to the bench were I use them when baking This way rather than having to carry them from the pantry to the bench, I can lift them out of the drawer and directly onto the bench.
I recently moved my breadmaker underneath the cooking staples cupboard…now I literally just open the cupboard, dump the stuff directly into the bread pan, and turn it on. No walking!
clever idea….
wonder if there is a site tells you how to organize kitchen cupboards i seem to always moving things but never seems to end up where i think it should be…..i have found the corner cabinet to be just about useless bottom shelf i do have spices and etc but other 2 shelves eh not much to amt to anything….
Hear Hear! I covered my glass doors of my hutch with fabric, gave away my good dishes and store my 6 year old’s diabetes supplies in it. You can see here
http://www.theamusingredhead.com/2009/11/diabetes-supply-storage.html
Thank you for the ideas!
K
We have a built in hutch in our dining room (we have NEVER used it as a dining room). I removed the glass from it (cracked), replaced it with fabric, and store school books in there. I also have two Rubbermaid containers of books that I had no where to store and I knew I would need them when homeschooling my youngest. I stacked the two containers, covered with a tablecloth and put pictures on the top. It sits in the foyer beside the piano. You’d never know it wasn’t a real table!
we have a beautiful dresser behind our couch that is full of little boys shoes. it’s the first thing they see when they walk in from the garage so it makes it easy for them to put their shoes away. And it’s right near the door when it’s time to leave. Very handy. Also, after reading your post about your boys jammies in their night stand, i moved all of their socks & underwear to the bathroom drawer. That has freed up a ton of good space in their dresser.
this is a great post!
LOVE THIS IDEA!!! Little boy shoes (and big boy ones, too, for that matter! LOL) are the bane of my existence! ;) :)
I moved my kids socks into a sterilite drawer in the front closet after reading the laundry post, no more traipsing up the stairs to get socks which they only ever put on just before leaving the house. Yay! I also store the gloves/hats in one of those drawers and the dog leash/swim goggles/umbrella in another. And the sunscreen and diaper cream is in the pantry (right by the front door and living room changing station) up where the toddlers can’t get into it and make art.
I store all my scrapbook goodies in the dresser beside the kitchen table.
And my kids ‘art drawer’ is in the t.v. armiore.
Works for us!
Your hutch is beatiful by the way.
I do this all the time but it makes people think you’re crazy if they ever go rummaging through your stuff. Or happen to be there when you go rummaging through your stuff :)
Glad to know I’m in good company!
love ya,
edie
I have always tried to keep everything where it “should” be. But there are many things that would be better if they were situated elsewhere. This month of posts has taught me so much. Thank you.
I do not put clothes where they belong. http://www.susiedavis.org/2010/10/100-hangers/
Please send help … no doubt you could make magic of my closet.
i’m with ya…the hutch in my DR houses board games for the kids, every kind of art supply imaginable, coloring books and all my “office” supplies- staples, tape, scissors. not a dish to be found in that hutch. lol
Sigh…I do this for everyone else in the house, making sure they have a place to put things that is generally where they’d drop it anyway.
But do I do it for ME!? NO! My kitchen is totally not arranged how I use it, there’s stuff all over and I have to make trips across the dining area 8 times every meal.
I have got to fix this.
My life got a lot easier when I decided to move my most used cooking utensils to the drawers in the area where I actually mix stuff, my rarely used dishes to the awkward to reach cupboard by the sink, and my children’s dishes to a low drawer. Now when I bake I don’t have to cross the kitchen, I just open a drawer and have all my measuring/stirring tools; I only have to contort myself to reach a dish once a week or so, and my children can unload their dishes from the dishwasher and set their places at the table themselves. I also have all their art supplies in the lowest kitchen drawer, where I wouldn’t like to crouch down to get anything but it’s easy for them and right by the table where they do their ‘projects.’
The bottom of our hutch houses all of our small appliances. It seemed silly at first for a piece in the living room to have kitchen appliances in it but it’s so close to the kitchen that it’s very convenient for me and no one else knows they are in there anyway :)
I can’t say I’ve heard that before :) – Great place for the small appliances you don’t use everyday…like waffle makers and crock-pots (which I put in the cabinet above my fridge). Good idea!
we do this. our hutch in the dining room is chock full of kids craft supplies where all things creative happen!
It took me so long to figure this out. Now, things may be in unexpected places to other people but they are right where it makes sense to us and is easiest for us. When my husband gets on a once a year cleaning “thing” he’ll put stuff where it should go and none of us can find anything for a month.
Dressers in the living areas and the bottom of our armoire are best for stuff like this.
I love this tip. I need to do more of this! The one place I do this is in a chest of drawers in my bedroom. I have my clothes in my closet, and I use the chest to hold gift wrapping supplies. It seems I almost always wrap gifts on my bed, so it works for me to have the gift-wrapping paraphernalia right there!
Since my boys do their homework at the kitchen table, we use one of our pantry shelves as a homework station. It works out beautifully and I don’t even miss the space!
I hear you. Our dining room sideboard is our makeshift office. Laptop, iPad, cameras all have a home on top (along with my inbox for everything that needs to get put away). The drawers are for chargers, pens, tape, etc all arranged in baskets. and the shelves are for the kids work. They work at the table anyway (art, spelling, etc) may as well store everything there.
And the sideboard has a big flat bottom drawer that fits all my gift wrap supplies.
I hang my table linens in my coat closet because it is right near my dining room. Upstairs we have two linen closets in our hallway and I use one for towels and sheets and the other it a craft closet stocked with anything crafty we could ever need, it is right near our home school room. When we moved in our home three years ago I really wnated to see how we would live in it before we made too many decisions on how to store and use the space. It has paid off well.
Great idea! Never really thought about it like that!
I have a homeschool hutch. The drawers are for pencils, pens, school supplies. The bottom doors hide all all of our books and binders and unpretty stuff.
I don’t have china and silver anyway.
Great advice… I need my daughter to start reading your blog :)
Useful tip! Thanks for sharing :)
Judy@cutest-little-things
To prevent a bajillion pairs of shoes from piling up near the door, we put frequently worn pairs in our hutch that’s in the living room next to the garage entrance. Guests are none the wiser, so, shhhhh!
Our entire dining room is lined with bookcases for home schooling. I keep a bin of books I am reading to them in the living room, where we all gather on the couches. And I leave reading glasses all over the house so they will be handy. I keep a basket on the microwave for miscellaneous little things that get left around the kitchen. More here:
http://virginiaknowles.blogspot.com/2008/09/place-for-everything.html
And here: http://comewearymoms.blogspot.com/2010/05/household-organization-clutter-clothes.html
We still have 9 kids at home, so lots of stuff. I am not very rigid about things.
Our bedroom dresser is our gift station. The bottom drawer is for bought-ahead gifts and the middle drawer is gift bags and tissue paper. Gift tags, pens, tape, etc are in the top drawer (with the non-gifty DVDs of seasons 1-6 of “The Office” for watching in bed at night ). :)
My girls’ art supplies are in our formal dining room. Our house has a formal dining room and a casual “family dining area” that connects the family room to the kitchen, but we opted to use only the formal dining room and to leave the dining “area” open for play, walking, and…well, just for open space. Yay for open space! But no matter how much we tried to move the art supplies to other areas, they kept gravitating back to the dining room. So that’s where they are, now in their own cupboard.
Thanks for this helpful post! I must say though, that my favorite thing in this post is the ESV study Bible in your hutch :) I love finding others using it too!
I’m a total believer in this philosophy.:) I keep my Bible, etc. in a kitchen cabinet near my coffee pot b/c I come down in the morning, grab my coffee and have my quiet time. I also keep medical supplies in a basket in the kitchen for my child with medical needs. I like to save myself walking all over the house for things I need!!
Love your idea of Bible by the coffee pot ready for morning worship.
We keep the Tylenol and Motrin in the dishes cabinet as it is convenient, used often and there is the perfect sized space for the bottles since the plates are round– between the stacks for a few medicine bottles.
My 3 girls hair stuff(brush, comb, detangling spray, pony tail holders, bows, etc….) gets put in an ottoman in our livingroom. This way I can get all their hair done while they watch cartoons. It
saves me a trip up and down the stairs every morning.
Very clever! :)
I have a drawer in the kitchen with hair and nail stuff, so I can do the little girls’ hair or trim their nails when I think about it without running upstairs.
So strange you posted this!! Last week I moved all of my kiddos ( I have two) clothes and shoes into my master closet and all of their bathroom stuff into my bathroom. Our washer and dryer are in our Master. So I was sick of carring all of their clothes up and down the stairs. They now wake up, come down stairs and don’t go back up. They get dressed and ready in our room. Same at night time. They take their clothes off and put them right in laundry room. I don’t clothes all of the house anymore. The best part is, the quest bathroom is a true guest bath! No kid toys anywhere. So far, it has worked perfectly. :) I think I might be looking around the house for other things I can more around to make my life easier!
Wow, talk about a lot of typos!! Sorry! That was meant to say *right in THE laundry room, *I don’t HAVE clothes all OVER the house anymore, *things I can MOVE around….LOL.
This has nothing to do with storing stuff but is instead a question: How did you get that scrunched up fabric cover on the lamp cord for the light fixture hanging over your eating area? Does the lights wires need to be disconnected at the top to get something like that up there? Do tell!
You can buy those or make them. The store bought one I have is velcro. I have seen people make them just by pinning the ironed edged fabric together. So, if you don’t mind me answering for The Nester, you don’t have to disconnect anything. Just mistreat your cords!
Yep! you could even hot glue it together! I bought that chandy at a yard sale so it already had the “leg warmer”.
Agreed! We have a bunch of weird stuff in our “coat closet.” Like wrapping paper and a set of tray tables. Our “linen closet” is pretty random too; it holds most of our seasonal decorations and extra candles.
I just loved to see inside your hutch. It was a
confirmation that maybe I am somewhat normal
in my creative storage habits.
We also have a large hutch that holds pretty
dishes. Inside the drawers below however, holds
board games and puzzles for the kids. Great for
a quick grab for the kitchen table!
I also have half of my double pantry filled with
art supplies, Bibles for each of my kids (for devotions
after lunch) and entertaining items: seasonal paper
napkins, plates, plastic forks, candles, etc.
Thank you for sharing everyday so many wonderful
ideas! You are an inspiration!
Blessings!
Malinda
I use an old secretary to hold DVDs on the shelves, stationary in the drawer, and family photos behind the glass doors. :)
Great advice!! I love it!
woo hoo! this is the first day that i can actually say i’m following your wise and wonderful advice! i haven’t been putting ANYTHING where it belongs over the past week or so. of course, nothing has been put away, either so i guess i’ve kinda missed the ‘spirit’ of your instruction, huh? ;-)
It’s crazy but we keep our toothpicks and super glue in the refridgerator door. I’m not sure when or why we started this, but people are always suprised that we go to the fridge to get a toothpick!
Uh, is this too gross…I have the cat box in the bathtub of the spare bathroom…out of sight…not where it should be…but just where I need it to be! ACK! ;}
m ^..^
in my last house this is where we kept ours too, it was nice, no trails of littler all over the place. now it is in the laundry room
We have a cupboard on the diningroom side of the counter and I store all our games and puzzles there because we play games at the table. I also store “my” hammer and nails in the desk in the front (living) room so my Husband won’t take it and get it all greasy. And the Bread is stored in the microwave, so it doesn’t get smushed in the pantry.
My dining room side board houses our games. The drawers houses the smaller office supplies, 3 hole punch, glue gun, stapler etc. The trunk houses larger office supplies, paper, folders, notebooks for school, envelopes. On top of that sits three baskets with the girls homeschool books. I used to have file boxes, but quickly learned that they don’t put something away if it has a lid. The open baskets are working great.
At our new house I will have the kids’ shoes and book bags in the down stairs closet instead of their rooms. With all the rowdiness that comes w/ being boys they always manage to misplace a shoe or something. I figure this way it’s put away until it’s needed.
Our “sideboard” (actually a child’s dresser handed down from a friend) has 9 drawers. One of those drawers holds our cloth napkins, salt and pepper, napkin rings- you know- typical stuff. But the other 8 hold our games. Because that’s where we play them, thank you very much!
this brilliant thought hit me last week as i was carrying shoes – once again – to the closet even though i knew i was going to wear them tomorrow so i just moved a basket next to the door to hold all our shoes. after that seemed so easy, i decided to leave our detergent and fabric sheets in another basket by the door since our apt washer/dryer is right outside our door. why was i carrying back and forth to the bathroom?
love love your blog and all the great ideas!!
Initially I couldn’t come up with something that we put in the “wrong” spot, and I guess that’s because the spots are “right” for us. Then I came up with a few…we don’t keep sheets in the linen closet. Our linen closet is small, and I can’t stand opening it up to a tower of linens falling on me. As a result, we keep the sheets in the rooms they are used in. In my son’s room, there is a drawer for blankets, sheets and pillow cases, and in my daughter’s room, they are in the closet. In our room, it’s back in the closet with them. We also keep our microwave in the laundry room right off the kitchen. We don’t use it much (which is why we skipped a mounted one in our kitchen redo), and I really don’t like the looks of them anyway. So I moved it to where it’s easy access if we need it, but it doesn’t get in the way of my counter space when I don’t. Weird to some, but perfect for us. Great post!
Are you willing to divulge the colors you used on your hutch? You may have already done that, but I haven’t taken the time to scour your site. It looks fantastic and I would like to shamelessly copy you on a hutch that I have that’s painted black. Thanks so much! I enjoy your blog.
I love this! We have a secretary that went through several transformations before it became what it is today–that is, a useful and beautiful home for things that don’t exactly “belong” but that support our lifestyle and help make time for the things that are important to us, like reading and board games :)
When we had a hutch (I’ve gotten rid of it) I used the top half to store our china and the bottom half with covered doors to store our homeschool supplies.
Loving these tips!
Good point, and it makes a world of difference. Suddenly things don’t end up in the wrong places, when just put away. :)