Solace...is an organized space.: Winter Sanity

I'm a mother of two little kids. They are both in school now and life is busy. The busiest time of the day? Mornings. Between the lunch preps and the breakfasts and the nagging for them to get dressed and brush their teeth, and my getting ready, there is little time to look for things as we are running out the door. I KNOW I am not alone in this! With winter RIGHT around the corner, this is only going to get more hectic.

I have put in place a few things to, #1, keep from yelling at my kids and, #2, to keep my sanity and I'm about to share them with you.

First up is my labeled basket system. I have found these baskets at Canadian Tire at one of their crazy discount sales. Each person has a bin with their name on it. Every time you come in from outside, your "stuff" goes in the basket. No more "what have you done with your hat???".

Next is the hooks for the little people. The adults and my giant stepson are able to hang up their clothes on hangers in the closet, but the little kids get to put their stuff on a hook. There are two great things about this. Firstly, they can get their coats by themselves. Secondly, I have strategically placed the hooks over a vent, so their wet winter clothes dry out before morning. If they went into a closet they would still be damp in the morning.

When my daughter was in Junior Kindergarten, we spent many mornings looking for mittens. We'd find they hadn't been put away or they were wet or they were mysteriously missing. I thought of the whole idea of having stringed mittens, but they are not perfect. Then I found these mitten clips at Kiddytown, down the street. What a fabulous invention! Now you can take any pair of mittens and clip them to their coats. The mittens NEVER get lost. And with them hanging off their coats, over the vent, they too are dry in the morning. I have since seen very decorative ones, but even these do the trick.

Next it's the footwear. Although we have a small entry way in our 50's home, we do have enough space for a bench. This one is from Ikea, but I noticed they don't carry it any longer. There is a similar one that is a bit smaller. For our bench, each person is given two cubbies. If you have more shoes, they need to go in the closet. My stepson isn't around enough to warrant a shoe cubby, and well, size 14 basketball shoes just don't fit! I have also placed a large scale mirror in the entry way, to bring more light into the space, and to functionally allow you to check some last minute things before heading out the door. Every entry way needs a mirror! This one also covers up an "architectural detail" that is a 1.5 ft square box in the wall for placing the telephone. You can see from the ledge that is there, that it is also off centre.

Lastly, I need to have keys when I'm heading out the door. For years, I have had my keys on a carabiner. Since we retrofitted our closet space with these shelving racks, I can clip my keys right by my basket. I also happen to clip them to my purse when I'm going out. Not just for the mountain climber!