The Lazy Dumping Spot
Every home has one: a dumping place we lay stuff down when we come in the house.
In our house in the city, it was the stairs, as the foyer was perched between one set going up and one going down in the split level house.
I also dumped mail on the kitchen table, and Dale put his stuff on a ledge in the family room.
There aren’t as many dumping places in Our Little House, but we still put stuff on the kitchen table, which I clean off every weekend. In the winter, we also sling our coats over the kitchen chair. In a small home, anything cluttering surfaces looks twice as bad.
When we visited Sevierville, Tennessee on one of my work assignments in September, we went into a store that had a lot of cabin décor. I found a hall tree (pictured above) that is perfect for my office.
However, there is really no room for a standing tree or even one that hangs in the house. Hanging the coats back in the closet each time we come in seems like it would be a simple solution, but like sorting mail and not cluttering up the kitchen table every day, it doesn’t seem to happen.
Even after five years of small house living, we are still disciplining ourselves on keeping the clutter out.
Do you find yourself (or family) throwing coats in a certain area, rather than hanging them up?
I have about 18 dumping spots. It’s really getting ridiculous.
Every December, my husband decorates our coatrack with holiday lights. The coats? They’re on a bed now, of course.
That’s funny, Ruth! I can picture the coat rack all lit up while the coats lay on a spare bed. 🙂
Great idea about the coat tree lights. I had thought we should put lights on the cat tree.
My kitchen island is our dumping place. It seems impossible to get clear. Then I transfer the stuff to the steps for my next trip up. Then it lands on the final dumping grounds: my desk!
I can’t stand stuff on my desk, but the filing cabinets and table in my studio aren’t off limits! I have to clean tomorrow.
Oh, my. You have touched a nerve. My husband has about three coats on chairs in the living room. We desperately need a place to hang them.
Sounds like a good excuse to go out and buy a coat rack!
Yes, we have clutter magnets, here or there. It’s hard because it’s not just about disciplining myself or my husband but our four kids too. It”s interesting to hear it still happens even after downsizing and simplifying your life!
It is more complicated with kids. Yesterday, the dogs received a box of treats in the mail from a friend, so I actually got to blame them for the clutter on the table last night! 😉
The kitchen bar area. It’s right next to the back door, and everything that I bring in gets piled up there. Coats get slung over one of the bar stools. I’m sitting at the bar typing this now, looking down line at the pile of mail, keys, cds etc that came in from the last load. But, we do have a plan! Since the cabin is so small, and the one bedroom closet is old style (maybe 5′ long, and certainly not walk in) and the coat closet got turned into a kitchen pantry, we’ve got a builder friend coming out to enclose the back porch area = we’re turning it into a mud room. Shoes, coats, mail, etc will at least have a landing place that won’t be totally visible from inside the house. We’re hoping add built in shelves and storage bins so things can get put up. LIke Carol said, it will be a retraining process.
Oh, I love the idea of a mud room. My parent’s larger, older Tudor had one and I think they should have continued building them onto houses. She had a great big coat rack in it and a bench where we could sit and take off and put on our shoes (I still have both stored in the storage building, sigh). I’ve thought about doing this to the covered front porch. I think it would be a lot more use as a mud room.
Kerri: That’s exactly what we are planning to do with the covered back porch. We did see a friend convert 1/2 of his front porch into an enclosed room that is a house addition. The other 1/2 is still the porch. I would not have thought it worked until I saw it.
I even had visions this morning of adding a pantry like my mother had in her mud room. Great idea!
My kids pile school bags and coats on the hope chest in the front hall. I have a couple piles in my office of stuff that has nowhere to go. I pile clothes on the chair in the bedroom. It’s just hard to have a place for everything all the time!
Oh, now I didn’t even drag the studio into this. I cleared one pile a couple of weeks ago. One pile to go.
I also find clutter has a way of finding me, even in my Tiny House! Where do things come from?
I’m convinced, like the rocks in our yard, clutter must sprout and grow!
Every available little wall space has a black hook! Haha! Coats and even my purse go on one. For some reason it just seems pointless to take the coat out and put the cost up when I take it on and off several times a day. I don’t know why. Also our kitchen island/table accumulates papers and I have to constantly clean it off.
“coat” not “cost”
I agree. If we’re just going to go back out, why hang the coat back up. My purse sits on the kitchen chair. The little desk we have in the living room is too full to accomodate it now. 🙁
We just went through the same thing!! We ended up buying one of those 70’s vintage-look wood towel bars and hanging it up in the beams on the ceiling. Disguised organizational tool!!! Except when we use coat hangers….which is most of the time!
Excellent idea, Nanci!
Oh, that is what chairs are for!
That’s funny, Melanie. Some people might argue that they’re for sitting, but we know better, right? 🙂
Guilty. Hanging on the back of the kitchen table chair, along with my purse, backpack and computer case. I refuse to talk about the mail, it’s a mess. I just lack the discipline to go through the stuff and take care of it in a timely manner! Working on it but it’s a slow relearning process.
Thanks for fessing up, Carol. 😉