Is your entry way cluttered or organized? The place you enter your home can get pretty overwhelming sometimes. It gets a lot of traffic! And you need to be able to find what you need when you're leaving, without a lot of searching and chaos.
Organization is the key to making this important area of the home function well! It makes all the difference in how smoothly your mornings go, and how peaceful you feel when you return home.
Over the next few weeks, I'll continue sharing tips to help you declutter and organize your entry area. I'll share some pictures of our entry and show you what works for us (and some tweaks I'm making), as well as share ideas you can use in your entry.
Today I'm sharing how I organize my reusable shopping bags and sharing tips to help you organize yours!
1. Have a Designated Spot for Reusable Bags
I love the trend towards using reusable bags for shopping over the last few years. It's so much better for the environment and very cost effective. But those bags need to be kept organized or else they'll either take over your entry area or you won't be able to find them when you need them.
If you designate a spot for your reusable bags, then you can always find them when you're heading out the door to shop.
I use a basket on one of the steps in our entry area. We keep a few bags in each of our vehicles in case we're shopping on the way home from somewhere and need them. But the rest are kept near the door in this basket, easy to grab on the way out.
You could also put a bin in your hall closet or hang several bags on the back of a closet door or on a coat rack. If your entry is near your laundry room or garage, you can stash a bin in a cupboard or on a shelf. The possibilities are endless! Just look around at your space and find the best place to store them where they are easy to access (and remember on the way out the door), but not where they'll create a visual distraction or make the entry area look cluttered.
2. Declutter Your Reusable Bags
Reusable bags can multiply quickly if you don't stay on top of them! You've probably purchased a few and then sometimes you get them for free from stores as a promotion. And if your family is anything like ours, some bags come from other people's homes filled with "stuff" for us. Or we get them from various special events, conferences, or clubs.
It's hard to purge reusable bags because they are so handy. But if you've got any that are torn or worn out, you can declutter them. Return some bags to friends or neighbours that migrated your way. And if you still have extras, they are great for using for your donations of household goods or clothing to Goodwill or Value Village when you're decluttering your home!
I decluttered our bags not that long ago, but I had a few in a bin in our hall closet that we haven't used in a long time. The ones in our basket by the door are enough, so I'm decluttering these ones that we don't use as often.
It's hard to purge reusable bags because they are so handy. But if you've got any that are torn or worn out, you can declutter them. Return some bags to friends or neighbours that migrated your way. And if you still have extras, they are great for using for your donations of household goods or clothing to Goodwill or Value Village when you're decluttering your home!
I decluttered our bags not that long ago, but I had a few in a bin in our hall closet that we haven't used in a long time. The ones in our basket by the door are enough, so I'm decluttering these ones that we don't use as often.
3. Always Put Your Bags In Their Designated Home
Just like with your keys, this is the key to being able to find your reusable bags! Once you've established a "home" for your bags, then ALWAYS put them in the SAME place. Simple right?!
If you just created a new "home" for your shopping bags, make sure you develop a habit of using it. And get everyone in your family who uses reusable bags to use it as well. Otherwise you'll still be searching for bags when you're ready to go shopping, or you'll have to pay for plastic bags at the store (if your store does that).
My New Key Holder
On a slightly different note, I want to thank all of you for your opinions on what kind of key holder I should buy! Our whole family was sick last week, but I finally had a chance to shop around for something.
As a quick refresher, this was what I was left with after I decluttered our old mail organizer / key holder.
Remember, I really didn't need a mail organizer so I wanted to find something to hang our keys on but also with a shelf or basket to keep my hubby's broken van key (not shown) and our garage door opener in. These were a few options:
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| Amazon |
This one was my favourite, but it was way too big and much more expensive than I wanted.
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| Amazon |
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| Amazon |
These two were much more suitable for our space and budget but I couldn't decide if I liked the open basket or closed basket better.
Want to see what I got?!
It's perfect! I found it at Target for $5! {There are store closing sales starting here since Target's closing up in Canada... boo for them closing... yay for the sales!}
This key rack is almost the same as my first choice, but it's not as big, and it was MUCH more affordable. Plus I can hang my purse instead of having it on the floor.
Since this piece is a bit bigger than the previous one, I took out all the hooks that we used for seasonal decor items. I'm decluttering some of them and I'll show you in another post where the others ended up.
I haven't put anything in the baskets yet but I'm going to talk with my hubby about putting his wallet, pens, small work items, candies, etc. in them, instead of keeping them on top of the old microwave stand around the corner in our kitchen.
There's too much space up there and it tends to get cluttered very quickly! And eventually I'd like to get rid of this stand completely (once I can convince my kiddos to use regular dishes, cups, and cutlery!).
I'll let you know what ends up in the key holder baskets, but for now I'm super excited to have this new addition in our entry! Here's a before and after of that wall beside our front door.
So, there's a little update on my key holder, and some tips on decluttering and organizing your reusable shopping bags!
I'll be showing you some of the other elements of our entry over the next few weeks to help you organize your entry so that your family's comings and goings are as stress-free as possible!
In the meantime, if you're looking for other ideas to organize your entry area, you can check out this post:
Or the other posts in the series:
Or you can check out my Entryways, Drop zones & Command Centres board on Pinterest.
How much time to spend searching for reusable shopping bags? How do you organize your reusable bags? Any entry tips you can share with us to help keep this important area of the home organized?
Happy organizing!
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