3 Easy Options To Stow Your Gear

These Trofast shelves from Ikea retail for $180. Hooks for coats/bags additional. 

I am the locker whisperer. At least this is what I told the 11 year old this summer when we went to middle school check-in. She was worried her locker wouldn’t open.

And it turns out she was right to worry. Her locker is hard to open! In life, there are some inescapable truths:

You never get assigned the easy-to-open locker. Just like you never get assigned the easy-to-organize family. 

So we embrace the work around. Some WD40 here, a mudroom there, and we’re in business!  

If you don’t have a mudroom but you do have a formal dining room or living room, it’s a no-brainer. Thanksgiving comes once a year. 

Getting your family out the door? 

Every day.

Take an entire wall of this fancy room and trick it out. We’re talking storage, people. Locker storage cabinets or coat hooks and benches with shoe storage. 

The goal is to store at least 3 sets of shoes, coats and bags. There are a million ways to do it. And all of them are better than throwing that stuff on the floor or kitchen table.

This shutter locker storage is from homedecorators.com. It retails for $469 with $40 shipping. And it has a closed-door option too, which retails for $799.

For that twice a year you actually use your formal dining room, you can move the storage system into the garage so you’re not looking at Junior’s smelly soccer cleats over the turkey.

This "bench with shoe storage" unit is from Ikea and retails for $60. Place several hooks over it for coats and backpacks. 

This middle school locker only took us 2 1/2 hours to open. 

I know we like pretty rooms and spaces. Heck, I’m the one who bought the 11 year old a chandelier. For her locker.

But functional trumps pretty. She’s gotta be able to open the locker to enjoy the chandelier. It’s the same principle for our homes: first the function, then the fabulous.

Happy organizing, guru guys & girls!