Storage secrets for a family home

For the next three months, I’ve joined up with the newly formed Tots100 Home Club – a group of bloggers who love their homes and interiors including Jen from  Mum in the Madhouse, Liz from Violet Posy, Karen from The White Approach, and Kelly from Domestic Goddesque – to take on a project in our homes each month in association with Homebase. This month’s theme is ‘Get Organised’, so we’ll each be sharing some smart storage ideas with you on our blogs. You can also share your organisation tips on the Tots100 facebook page, or see some great ideas on the Tots100 Home board on Pinterest.

It is my not-so-groundbreaking opinion that you simply can’t have enough storage in a family home. Or any home, for that matter. Much of my interiors-related energy goes on working out what should live where, and how to maximise the storage our house offers. Just as you think you’ve cracked one problem area, the family’s needs shift, and you find yourself left with a whole new storage challenge to solve.

There are so many problem areas to tackle that I found narrowing it down to just one pretty difficult. I’ve decided to deal with the clutter problem in our hallway – an area that tends to look like a hurricane has hit it.

This shot was taken mid kitchen project, so actually a lot of the clutter had been deposited upstairs out of the way (and the cat litter and tray don’t normally live right next to our front door), but the main problems are:

• Coat storage – all our coats are stored on a cumbersome coat stand that takes up too much room and really dominates the space when piled high with everybody’s numerous coats.
• Shoe storage – where do they go? Ours are scattered throughout the house, which doesn’t help the already extremely stressful job of trying to get myself and two 2.5 year olds out the door.
• Post etc – we frequently lose important letters such as bills because we don’t have a place to keep them when they come through the door.
• Keys – as above, these are always getting mislaid and cause unnecessary stress and arguments until they are tracked down.
• Other junk – all that other stuff you need to grab when you’re running out the door with kids, such as the bag containing the travel potty and wipes, the kids’ lunch bags, umbrella, cash for parking, rain coats, wellies and my sanity.

Hopefully I’ll find solutions to each of these problems during my hallway storage project, the results of which I’ll be sharing with you later this month. And as I know that toy storage (or lack of it) is a major issue for a lot of people I’m also going to do a post with my top tips and ideas to help get toys organised.