• Home
  • ABOUT
    • About Me
    • FEATURED
    • LINK PARTIES
  • Policies
    • PRIVACY POLICY
    • DISCLAIMER & TERMS OF USE AGREEMENT
    • DISCLOSURE POLICY
    • COPYRIGHT POLICY
  • CONTACT
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter
    • YouTube

Refined Rooms

Organize | Design | Inspire

  • BLOG
  • Organize
    • Organizing Project Gallery
    • By Space
      • Bathroom
      • Bedroom
      • Closet
      • Command Center
      • Craft Space
      • Dropzone
      • Garage
      • Home Office
      • Kitchen
      • Mudroom
      • Pantry
    • Organizing Process
    • Habits & Routines
    • Organizing Products & Tools
    • Paper
    • Photos
    • Information
    • Kids and Families
    • Holidays
    • Preparedness
  • Decorate
    • Decorating Project Gallery
      • Room Reveals
      • One Room Challenge
    • Tips & Tricks
    • Tools & Inspiration
    • Shopping Guides
    • Home Improvement
    • Home Staging
  • Be Productive
    • Productivity Processes
    • Productivity Tools
  • Challenges
    • The Organize and Refine Your Home Challenge
    • The 40 Bags In 40 Days Declutter Challenge
    • The 10-Week Digital Photo Organizing Challenge
    • The One Pile at a Time Paper Declutter Challenge
    • The Organize Your Holiday Challenge
  • SHOP
  • PRINTABLE VAULT

BECOME A VIP

GET ACCESS TO MY ORGANIZING PRINTABLES VAULT

By opting in, you agree to receive my newsletter and ongoing resources. Unsubscribe at any time.
You are here: Home / Organize / By Space / Command Center / The Home Command Center – Foundations of an Organized Home

The Home Command Center – Foundations of an Organized Home

door with hanging organizer full of papers with text overlay "The must have components of a household command center"

In the first month of  The  Organize & Refine Your Home Challenge we’ve been laying down the building blocks of an organized home.  So far, we’ve completed our decluttering prep work and put our planning tools & systems into place. 

This week, it’s all about creating a home command center.

{DOWNLOAD THE ORGANIZING FOUNDATIONS CHECKLIST HERE}

home command center for household papers located in kitchen area.

This post contains affiliate links for your shopping convenience (which means if you make a purchase after clicking a link I will earn a small commission, but it won’t cost you a penny more)! Click here to read my full disclosure policy.

If your home is anything like mine, there’s typically a flurry of activities, paperwork, schedules and household tasks that you’re juggling. Creating a home command center to serve as the home base for managing it all has been a lifesaver for me.

Everyone’s command center will look different, based on the space you have available in your home, how you use the space and the specific needs of your family.

My home current command center is a bit unconventional since it actually consists of three separate areas in my kitchen. I introduced you to my built-in desk area during the Paper Declutter Challenge.

mail processing center as part of home command center using kitchen built-in desk.

The desk area contains our inbox for all incoming household papers:

Inbox for household papers in kitchen.

It’s also where our action file for household papers lives:

31 Fold and File Tote used as a household action file system for papers.

We also keep our household binder in the desk (although I’ve recently relocated it to the back of the action file in order to free up this desk drawer for electronics cords).

The binder contains all of our handy reference papers. You can read more about the specifics of what we keep in the household reference binder here.

a household reference binder in kitchen desk drawer.

When it’s time to grab a take-out menu or locate a gift card, we open the cupboard above the desk to retrieve them (I use these awesome pantry pockets to keep them organized):

using pouches to organize coupons and gift cards inside kitchen cabinet.

The second command center area in our home is on the side of our refrigerator and consists of time-sensitive school-related papers for each of the kiddos that I place in magnetic clips in chronological order.

You can read more about how I organize school papers here.

using a large magnetic clip to organize school papers on side of fridge in kitchen.

The last area of our home command center lives on the door in our kitchen which leads into our laundry/mudroom.

I love my Thirty-One Hang-Up Home Organizer! This product was discontinued this product not too long ago, but if you do a little hunting, you may be able to scoop one up on eBay.

home command center using a vertical organizer mounted on a door.

Each week, I print out a paper version of my digital calendar that lists the family events for that week (I omit my personal and business-related appointments).

I use the pocket on the upper right to store the monthly school lunch menu. That pocket can be used as a dry erase area, so we’ve got some space on the bottom to write reminder notes (perfect spot, since we view this door each time we’re leaving the house).

displaying weekly calendar and lunch menu on home command center.

In the middle area of the organizer you can see my husband’s zone, where he stores spare business cards, his YMCA membership, and a few other random loyalty cards that he occasionally uses. We also store our running shopping list, our pantry and freezer inventories, and a few pens and dry erase markers.

Since this door is in between our pantry and our refrigerator, it’s the perfect place to keep track of what food we’re out of and what’s in stock here at Chez Gallagher.

storing items, grocery lists and pantry/freezer inventories in home command center.

The bottom portion of the door organizer contains a pocket for each of my kids.

We keep a monthly calendar in each pocket that they use to record upcoming tests and school assignment due dates so that we all know what’s on the academic horizon.

storing important family papers in home command center.

 

Home Command Center Components

There are no hard and fast rules about what to include in your command center. It will all depend on what you need to effectively manage the day-to-day needs of your household. With that being said, here’s a list of things that you might want to include:

  • Calendar
  • Bulletin board
  • Dry-erase whiteboard
  • Paper storage (clipboards, wall pockets, desktop file)
  • Clock
  • Charger station for electronics
  • Pens/Markers
  • Post-It notes

Take a peek at this curated collection of awesome product choices to build your family command center.

Choosing Your Home Command Center Location

Location location location folks…

Once again, there’s no right or wrong place to create your household command center. Just make sure it’s in a central area of your home. For most people, that central area is the kitchen, but it doesn’t have to be.

And you certainly don’t need a built-in desk area. You can create a home command center wall! In fact, one of my favorite command centers does a fabulous job capitalizing on unused wall space:

City Suburb Sanity's Home Command Center.

Let’s explore a few more home command center ideas, shall we?

Perhaps you’ve got an underutilized closet that you can transform into a command center:

The Happy Housie's Home Command Center using a closet.

 

And talk about a home command center for small spaces, you can actually carve out a command center in a kitchen cupboard:

Organized Homelife's Kitchen Cabinet Home Command Center.

 

Your Assignment for this week:

  1. Explore all of the great examples of household command centers over on my Cool Family Command Centers Pinterest board
  2. Determine the necessary components for your home command center (purchase products if necessary)
  3. Decide on a location for your home command center and set it up
  4. Give your family members a “command center tour” so that they become familiar with it and begin to use it

Be sure to check out my round-up of stylish and functional products for creating a custom family command center:Collage of products to create a home command center.

Once you’ve completed your assignment, it’s time to put the three other foundations of an organized home in place (if you haven’t done so already):

  • Complete your decluttering prep work
  • Establish your household tools & planning systems
  • Create your household drop zone

I’d love it if you’d share your household command center on Instagram (tag me @refined_rooms and use the hashtag  #OrganizeandRefineChallenge). Let’s inspire and support one another along the way!

——————–

This post is part of the Organize and Refine Your Home Challenge

Organize and Refine Your Home Challenge logo.

Ready to Get Epically Organized?!

Get the Monthly Organize & Refine Your Home Challenge assignments sent directly to your inbox!

You're IN! Look for your Organize & Refined Your Home assignment emails to arrive in your inbox at the beginning of each month!

There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again.

We won't send you spam. Unsubscribe at any time. Powered by ConvertKit

Challenges// Command Center// Information// Kids and Families// Organize// Organize & Refine Your Home Challenge// Organizing Foundations// Paper// Productivity Processes5 Comments

« DINING ROOM MAKEOVER REVEAL – MY HOME REFRESH
HAND-PICKED HOUSEHOLD COMMAND CENTER PRODUCTS »

Comments

  1. Janet Barclay says

    January 25, 2016 at 7:03 am

    We don’t really have (or need) a command center, because we manage all household paperwork in the home office, and we’re all on one floor, but reading this and seeing your built-in desk made me very nostalgic for a house I used to own. It was quite old, so we had the whole kitchen gutted and my new design included a built in desk that had two deep drawers for filing. I was so proud of that desk!

    Reply
    • Natalie Gallagher says

      January 25, 2016 at 9:04 am

      I don’t ever think I’ve seen a built-in kitchen desk with file drawers. That does sound like an awesome “command center”!

      Reply
  2. Crystal says

    January 19, 2016 at 10:11 am

    Command centers can be so pretty and stylish, but also functional. I love that. The pantry pockets are such a great thing, I love mine too! Organizing vertically really does help to save on space. You gave lots of great information, thanks!

    Reply
    • Natalie Gallagher says

      January 19, 2016 at 10:27 am

      I totally agree Crystal! I’m in the middle of putting together my next post on awesome command center products, and looking at all of the gorgeous products gets me so inspired! Thanks for stopping by the blog

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

LOOKING FOR SOMETHING?

Headshot and About description Natalie Gallagher and Refined Rooms.

FOLLOW ME ON BLOGLOVIN’

Follow

SEARCH BY CATEGORY

COPYRIGHT

I love it when you share my tips, ideas and inspiration! Please keep in mind that all images and text on this site are the property of Refined Rooms, unless otherwise stated (regardless of whether photos are watermarked or not). Feel free to use one image, provided that a link back to my original post is included. Please do not remove any watermarks, crop, or edit any of my images without first obtaining written permission from me. All free printables are for personal use only. Pinning is always welcome and appreciated! Thank you!

DISCLOSURE

This site contains affiliate links for your shopping convenience (which means if you make a purchase after clicking a link I will earn a small commission, but it won’t cost you a penny more). Click here to read my full disclosure policy.

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Copyright © Refined Rooms 2021 · Savory theme by Restored 316 | Site Designed by Courtney Kirkland

Privacy Policy