I can’t believe we are already nearing the end of our first month of The Organize & Refine Your Home Challenge .
During our organizing foundations month, we’ve completed our decluttering prep work, perfected our planning system, and created/tweaked our household command center. The last assignment in the foundation phase of the challenge is to create an official household drop zone.
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You know that tendency that you & your family members have to drop everything that’s in your hands in a pile somewhere just as soon as you come through the door at the end of the day? A household drop zone makes that annoying pile go away AND makes locating those essential items that you need when you’re rushing out the door quick and easy.
WHERE TO CREATE YOUR HOUSEHOLD DROP ZONE
As you determine where to create your drop zone, you’ll need to work with your home’s layout and your family’s natural tendencies. The best location for your household drop zone is near your family’s natural dumping spot, which is typically immediately inside the door that you most often use to enter your home.
Common household drop zone locations include the:
- garage (the area right outside the door leading into the home)
- mudroom
- a foyer/entryway
- back hallway
- kitchen
{I was kind of hoping that my laundry room redesign project would be completed for this photo shoot, but alas, I’m running behind. So please forgive the dark, dreary paint and the patches of spackle you’ll see as part of our painting prep.}
When it came time to establish our household drop zone, it really was a no brainer, since we enter our home through the garage into our combination mudroom/laundry room about 99.9% of the time.
WHAT TO STORE IN YOUR HOUSEHOLD DROP ZONE
The items you choose to store in your household drop zone will depend on what stage of life you’re in, what you routinely carry with you while traveling out the door each day, as well as the current season. I’ll give you a tour of our drop zone to spark some ideas as you begin to plan yours.
You all know how I love to store things on the backs of doors. The mud room is no exception.
I use a set of Thirty-One Oh-Snap Pockets on the back door leading into our garage for storage. The top pocket is used as an Outbox to hold things that I need to take with me on future outings (e.g., outgoing mail, store returns, etc).
The bottom two pockets serve as our “Bella Zone”, where we store the dog’s leashes and outerwear for walks on those cold winter days.
To the right of that door is the meat and potatoes of the drop zone, which consists of a series of hook rails for storing the boys’ ball caps, the kids’ frequently used coats (based on the season), and their back packs. I also store my purse on an oversized Command Hook to the right under the cabinets.
In the corner, you can snag a peek at my grocery bag dispenser where we store all of those grocery bags to reuse for various purposes around the house.
Below the hook wall is the shoe storage zone for the kids’ shoes. This stackable shoe organizer does the trick for maximizing the available space.
Moving clockwise around the room (skipping the washer/dryer wall), we come to the door that leads from the mud/laundry room into the kitchen. I use a pair of simple over-the-door hooks to store the kids’ swim bags (that are used pretty much on a daily basis) and some random drawstring bags.
Turning clockwise once again, we come to our large coat closet (you can check out how we organize this coat closet here), which is where the grown-up (in season) shoes are stored using a pair of stackable shoe cubbies. Out-of-season shoes live in our bedroom closets. The grown-up (in season) coats are also stored in this closet.
At the bottom of the closet, I use an inexpensive plastic drawer unit to store our gloves, hats, and scarves.
Ideally, we would store my husband’s keys and wallet in the drop zone, but I don’t want to mess with the “good thing” we’ve got going with this simple basket he uses in the kitchen desk area to store these items.
There’s just no good place to put the basket in our mud/laundry room, so on the kitchen office desk it shall stay.
Our family’s drop zone reflects our specific needs and yours should as well.
If you’re a family with young children, you won’t need school backpack storage quite yet, but you WILL need a place to store the diaper bag. If your kids participate in sports that involve big, bulky equipment (e.g., hockey, football), you’ll need to designate a consistent home for those items (perhaps in the garage). You get the picture.
Your Assignment for this week:
- Take a look at my “Organize Your Drop Zone” Pinterest board to explore a variety of drop zone examples to gather ideas for how to set up a drop zone in your home
- Decide on a location for your household drop zone (based on your natural dumping area)
- Determine the particular storage needs for your drop zone
- Purchase any necessary organizing/storage products and set up your drop zone
- Give your family members a “drop zone tour” so that they become familiar with it and begin to use it
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 command center
Also, I’d love it if you’d share an image of your drop zone in action on Instagram (tag me @refined_rooms use the hashtag #OrganizeandRefineChallenge). I can’t wait to see how the drop zone plays out in your home!
This post is part of the Organize and Refine Your Home Challenge
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Mortgage Broker in Sydney says
Thank you for posting. Your article about where to create your household drop zone was interesting to read. Without a doubt, this article will be bookmarked.
Nancy Haworth says
Great photos and wonderful tips about setting up a drop zone. I especially like the plastic drawers to hold gloves, hats & scarves. The Thirty-One Oh-Snap Pockets for holding outgoing items is another great storage solution.
Natalie Gallagher says
Glad you found the post helpful Nancy!
Olive Wagar says
That dream drop zone photo was rather amazing! But I appreciate how you creatively utilized your available space with very affordable options. Those shoe cubbies are so handy. I think the most important factor for success is matching your family’s natural drop habits with simple storage solutions.
Natalie Gallagher says
Totally agree Olive!
Janet Barclay says
At first I was jealous because I’ve never lived ANYWHERE with that kind of space near the entryways, but then I saw your suggestions for back-of-door and closet-floor storage – brilliant! Something for everyone… thank you.
Natalie Gallagher says
Yes, you can store so much on the backs of doors. It’s such an underutilized space.
Donella says
We need to come up with better solutions for our drop zone. It’s a hot mess by the end of every day. I do love that shoe cubby idea.
Natalie Gallagher says
Yes, I don’t know what we’d do without those shoe cubbies. They rock!
Debrashoppeno5 says
You have shared some great tips. I don’t have such a large area but I will take this information and work it for my spot. Thanks for sharing.
Natalie Gallagher says
Awesome Debra! No two “drop zones” look the same…definitely something that needs to be customized based on the available space you have and the layout of your home. You don’t need a large space to make it functional! Be sure to check out all of the examples over on my Drop Zone Pinterest board for more inspiration