I’m envious of  this nice mudroom.  Photo from HGTV.

If moms ruled the world, the largest room in every home would be the mudroom.  Mudrooms and home organization go hand-in-hand. Those of you who already have a mudroom or mudspace (it doesn’t have to be a separate room) are saying to yourselves “Well, duh” because you know the importance this space has in maintaining your sanity.

Busy families come with lots of gear (coats, hoodies, TKD bags, soccer stuff, book bags, etc.)  A thoughtfully designed mudroom: (1) stores gear close to the family entrance so it doesn’t find its way to cluttering up the rest of the house; (2) makes it easy to find things as you’re trying to leave the house with your busy family; and (3) adds real value to your home.

Of course, not all homes were built with a mudroom.  My house didn’t have one, so I converted half of my laundry room to mudspace. I know a family who installed simple hooks just inside the door for coats but built an elaborate mudroom of lockers in their garage for all their “kid gear”: brilliant!

If you’re thinking about creating a mudroom/mudspace, here are some tips from the home organization experts (and a couple from little ol’ me:)

• assign each family member a set of hooks or an individual locker if you have the space
• think about the number of hooks you will need, then double it
• coat hangers on rods are not as practical as hooks; all family members (even husbands) know how to put things on a hook
• make sure your kids can reach their hooks
• include a sitting place or bench for putting on/taking off shoes
• if possible, include low drawers for loose items like gloves, hats, flip flops, slippers, etc.
• allow for open space on the floor to tuck away boots and shoes (see the photo above)
• build upper storage for seasonal stuff like beach towels, stadium seat cushions, bike helmets, snow gear, etc.
• if you have upper storage, make sure you have a sturdy place to stand (like on the shoe bench) so you can reach it
• mudrooms also are a great place for mail sort areas, calendars, key hooks, phone chargers “stations,” cork boards, white boards; basically they can serve as your “command central.”

If you’re in the process of building a home, think about designing a mudroom that not only is the first room the family enters but that also has a door to the backyard so kids (and pets) coming in and out can get to coats and shoes easily. (I wish my mudroom had this feature.)

So there’s my mudroom speech.  If you have more mudroom tips (I bet you do), please share!

Love Your Home,
Sue

Photos from HGTV

We all know them. People with perfect closets of labeled storage boxes and matching hangers.  People with pantries that look like the shelves in a gourmet food boutique (see annoying pantry photo above.) People who always have on hand a fresh supply of batteries, sorted in little compartments by size of course.

You know who I’m talking about…the uber-organized.

As much as I admire them, I’m simply not one of them.

In my world there are three kids under the age of 12, and a husband who is, and I’m being kind, the opposite of a neat-freak.  Being married with children has turned me into a hard-core realist.  Clutter, laundry on the kitchen table, unfinished decorating projects and numerous chaotic spaces co-exist with a few peaceful, organized, tidy spaces in my home on a daily basis.

Does the woman who owns the closet in this photo have another closet where she hides the rest of her clothes? The clothes that aren’t beige? Seriously.

That being said, I do believe we all deserve a home where the disarray does not stress us out to the point where we look forward to leaving it each day. I guess I’ve developed my own form of Home Organization called: I-Live-in-the-Real-World Organization. To that end, over the years I’ve read the tons of articles and picked the brains of my most amazingly uber-organized friends: Marla, Laurie Ann, Heather, Jill and Valerie.  From that, I’ve selected a few strategies that seem to give me the biggest bang for my buck when it comes to Home Organization.

So in the spirit of Fall nesting (i.e., that feeling of “Yeah, the kids are back in school, wow, my house got trashed over the summer,”) I’ve decided to provide my most favorite Home Organization tips over the course of my next several blog entries.

So please check back and feel free to provide your own tips in the comments. I’d love the advice of other I-Live-in-the-Real-World organizers like me.

Love Your Home,
Sue

Beautiful Photo by Dawn LeBlanc

My name is Sue and I’m a Home-Aholic.  Now you’re supposed to say “Hi Sue.” 

So here’s my story. I feel lucky. I love my Home.  I love being at Home: working, vegging, playing Frisbee with my kids, checking email, watching movies with my hubby, vacationing, hosting football parties, drinking wine on my patio, entertaining AT HOME.  When I can afford it and have the time, I love decorating my Home. I even enjoy organizing my Home.  I don’t like cleaning my Home (i.e., I’m not weird.)

Home design has always been my hobby/passion/obsession.  As a kid, every year I would bug my mom to let me redecorate my bedroom.  One year, my mom bought me a bright yellow bedspread. Once I put it on the bed, I felt the yellow needed balance.  So I painted several 5-foot, even brighter yellow daisies on the opposite wall. From that moment on, I couldn’t get decorating out of my system. Though my college degree and career choice led me down the path of computer information systems, I never lost my love for decorating.

After 15 years working as an IT consultant, I had kids and, big surprise, I stayed Home with them.  When I decided it was time to head back to work, I wanted to pursue my passion.  Two years after starting a part-time decorating business from my Home, I discovered two things: (1) a decorating business is all-consuming; there’s nothing part-time about it; and (2) by its very nature, it can’t be done from Home – it’s done in other peoples’ homes. (Not sure why I didn’t realize that at the start.)

These days, I still provide design services, mostly through partnering with other designers. Fun.  And, because of my love-of-Home sickness, I have an unquenchable urge to spew my philosophies about Home decorating, Home organizing, Home staging, basically, all things Home. 

Ta-da: this blog was born.   

Not certain where I’ll go with it from here.  I do not consider myself to be a superior writer (or designer for that matter) with a need to share my gifts with the world.  But, I do know this: blogging will let me get my decorating fix.  And the best news: I can blog AT HOME!

Love Your Home,
Sue