My Own Mission Organization

Let me start by saying I am not the world's most organized person. Although I crave organization--I have a difficult time getting started. I am always on the hunt for new systems and I scour the internet for advice on home organization. In fact, my latest quest was to find some sort of entryway organization.

I dreamt of systems like these....


I loved the idea of basket storage but wasn't too thrilled with the idea of still "seeing" the coats etc. I like things to be hidden as much as possible. Reduce the visual clutter. Also, this storage system would be right behind our kitchen table so I really didn't want to look at coats, scarves and shoes three times a day while we ate.

So I dreamt of a system like this....where everything is hidden. Where everything has a place. And then I choked when I saw the price tag. Ridiculously expensive!


And then after plenty of research I found this system at Ikea.


With a 50% off pricetag to boot. MAJOR SCORE. Although, I gotta admit I wasn't too thrilled with the way that it looked. I knew it needed sprucing up. So I bought a bunch of Ikea baskets that fit into it and a row of Ikea puck lights for some illumination up at the top.


Yet it still had a cold and modern feel to it.....not at all the look I was going for. So, I gathered up some cardboard, decorative papers and some sticker letters and set out to create unique looking labels for the baskets.

And voila!



Suddenly I had a place for our mail, magazines and my misc. clutter! Yes, that's correct, a basket devoted to clutter. How great is that? My clutter is organized!



And a place for scarves, umbrellas, shoes, diapers, and backpacks!! Even my dog Rizzo has a basket. Now that's what I call foolproof organization! I can't mess it up! Everything has a home.



I decided to put our cookbooks in the middle unused section with some hidden hooks for all of our keys. And then spent way too much time pondering what I wanted to display on the top shelf. I was confident that it needed some kind of colored backdrop in there because the light was getting lost. So, I went to Home Depot, bought an insanely cheap piece of shelf backing that I had cut to size and painted it a deep pumpkin color that I had left over. I knew I wanted to display family pictures but there wasn't a whole lot of room in each square to work with. So, I decided to make a photo collage out of four wooden letters bought at Hobby Lobby to spell the word LOVE.

Technically, does this count as my first attempt at "scrapbooking" even though there's no book?



Here's a closer look...













I'm terrible at shelf decorating. I know what I like when I see it in a magazine but I get paralyzed when it's my turn. I threw these flowers, bunnies and lantern up there for the time being. What do you think? What could I add to the top to make it feel more complete? How do you decorate a shelf? A plant maybe?



Oh and yes, I know the "O" seems a little off. I am currently on the hunt for a better way to stand it up. Overall, I'm thrilled that we finally have organization when we walk through the door. Our own little mudroom---without the room and mud of course!