I most need a landing strip for my backpack and purse that I drag everywhere. It needs to be in the office, though, not near the entrance.

The door opens directly into the living room. The first thing you see is a piano, now covered in stuff. I do take care of the junk mail and bills daily. Other things that require action, like the notice that one of my accounts now has a fee, so I want to roll it over into another account, and like the coupon my dentist sent, end up sitting there. Stuff for my boyfriend ends up piling up there.

We also have a coat rack, so filled with my boyfriend's stuff that I no longer even try to put anything there. My coats all go in a hall closet.

My goal is to clear a good space in the office for my backpack, purse, and pending mail; clean off the piano; and make a habit of going through pending mail each weekend.

Probably I should also clean out my coat closet, although it is in the hallway and not near the front door.

I already have a bowl on my dresser for keys and other things that come out of my pocket, and my boyfriend has one on some shelves near the dining room, so that's taken care of. I also have a place in the office for my re-usable grocery bags that has been working great.

Another thing I'm doing right at the entrance is storing a fire extinguisher on the window sill next to the door. I figure that if you ever need to grab a fire extinguisher, it's good to be between the fire and the door. So I've got one near each door and one at the window in the bedroom and the office.

Hats and mittens and scarves and mittens and gloves and gators and scarves and earmuffs and hats. I'm going to clean out the cupboard of the kitchen cart I put the bag, keys, etc. on and put a nice big basket or bin in there for them. Right now they pile up on the cart top and it's a cascading mess alllllll winter long. Much as I wish I would just bother to go put them all in the coat closet, it's not what happens. So it's time I just organize this based on my habbit.

I did part of the Fall Cure last year and installed this spice rack near the door to catch mail, sunglasses, ID, etc.
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/40070185

I also have a cutlery caddy for keys and ID that hangs off the side. It's functional, but now I'm thinking the unfinished birch looks a little frumpy. I may take it down or paint it to match the trim in that room.

I've thought about upgrading my coat and shoe racks to the IKEA TJUSIG line... but not sure it's worth the expense when there are such cheap alternatives:
TJUSIG: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/50152703
PLINGA: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/80152594

But to answer the question, it's papers, notes and things I want to keep around for ideas... so maybe I just need to work on an office solution!

I need a home for shoes (for a family of 4), a variety of bags, keys, camera and phone battery chargers, pocket change, receipts, name tags etc...
Currently we enter the house through the laundry room about 80% of the time and the front door about 20% of the time. Shoes are kicked of at the door haphazardly and other things are left on the washing machine of make their way across the family room onto the kitchen counter. Some things make their way all the way upstairs onto the dresser in the bedroom or the counter in the bathroom!
I was thinking this might help http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/50145326 if there is space in the laundry room. Time to get out the tape measure.

I need a place for shoes. It can't be an open shoe rack of my cat will destroy them. The problem is, I have no hallway. The door opens directly into the living room.

My "landing strip" is one of my most treasured possessions-- a small 1960's teak Danish wall-mounted glove box (20" wide, 8" tall, 8" deep). Its top is a shelf, and it has a single door that pivots on the bottom. My gloves, scarf and hat get tossed inside, my keys & mail go on the top.

Mounted to the wall right inside my front door (kitchen), below a bulletin board.

I cannot put into words how wonderful it feels to know I have scrubbed every inch of wall, baseboard, shelving, cupboard and drawer front, in my kitchen. Oh--and the inside of two bottom cupboards scrubbed and freshly papered, too.

I made stock, muffins and dinner in there tonight--and washed up.

It was fantastic.

My landing strip is also "spread" throughout various parts of the house.

There are actually two things we need most in our landing strip: a place for winter boots the dog can't reach---and a place for hats, mitts and scarves, ditto.

it's multiple sweaters that need a home at my house! the weather is always so variable, i end up with five sweaters on the couch 'just in case.' silly!

i'm not sure i'm looking forward to landing strip week, but i'll do my best!

blogging progress here:
http://evenhoward.wordpress.com

Bags, keys, phone, wallet, sunglasses, mail, scarves and gloves, coats, boots, shoes.... all things I need to get rid of as soon as I enter my home.

I have a small hallway with 6 doors (!) leaving little room for storage furniture. Fortunately one of the doors leads to a closet deep enough to have both big shelves and a coat rack. In here I also keep my vacuum cleaner and brooms, recycling boxes and other household items. It needs some more efficient storage solutions though.

Mounted on the wall I have a little drawer where I keep extra keys, batteries, ipod. The surface is just big enough for throwing my keys, phone and wallet there.

I'm doing a one-room treatment during this cure, but I will take some time to rearrange my closet.

Progress here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/plizzyp/

Was this article suppose to be a lesson, inspiration to the rest of us? Is it April fools?

The organization of that NYC apartment was a mess. Very unpleasing to the eye and not very creative. Im just saying!

I need a place to put coats, bags, keys and papers. I think I'll get a little storage cupboard (dresser or buffet) so that we can put our keys and papers on it - instead of on the kitchen counter - and put a chair next to it so that we have a place to set bags and to put on shoes. I'll put hooks above the chair so that we can hang our coats. Another system I've considered is a bench and hooks, but then I don't know where we'd put the keys and papers. Maybe in a basket on the bench or up high on the shelf? Here's my dream bench and hooks:
http://www.shakerworkshops.com/catalog/view/shaker-benches-settees/Enfield-Meetinghouse-Bench/F224
http://www.shakerworkshops.com/catalog/view/shaker-shelves-and-storage/Shaker-Peg-Shelves/F404

Now I just need the budget... And I want to paint the room first (I have paint samples on the wall already) because I'm not sure what color furniture to use in the entryway. Maybe white so that it brightens the space. I'm worried that another wood would look strange because the kitchen cabinets are cherry, and the floor is maple.

How do you all deal with different wood colors? Is it strange to have maple, cherry and dark woods all in one space? Instead of introducing another wood, should I use painted/color furniture?

Is the landing strip a smart idea? I know it means you can grab stuff as you leave home but it also works for unsavoury characters who may call. My elderly neighbour had her keys and purse snatched in this way.

I bought one of those single pair shoe organizers and put it in our entry closet. The bottom departments hold flip-flops and the top ones hold mittens, gloves, and scarves. I love that it's seasonal, so only one side gets used. And it's the perfect size.

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=11065080

I also have an over the door shoe organizer in the same closet. That's where my husband's shoes go. Mine go in the same holder in our room. If they're wet, we let them dry in our tiled entryway, then they get put up. It works well!

It's good that you have a system that works for you, but I wonder about the safety of having your primary means of egress lined with things that could so easily trip you, or your guests, if you had to evacuate in an emergency.

Outerwear, outerwear, outerwear. And also shoes.

Because the entryway to my apartment is dominated by books (which is nonnegotiable due to my roommate), my landing strip tends to float around the living room depending on the season, the weather, and other rhythms and variables. Right now shoes are getting shoved into the wedge of space between the arm of the couch and the wall. There's a basket of reusable bags, outerwear, bike kit, and the like on the other side of the couch. Junk mail isn't so much an issue for me as it is for my roommate, who generally deals with that in his own way.

Astronauta,

I have a similar problem and found that I can store eight pairs of shoes in a row under my couch. The couch sits rather low, so I just set them back about two inches and you can't see them unless you're sitting or laying on the floor.

I find that the ingenuity and storage offset the slight inconvenience of pulling everything out from under the couch once a month to vaccuum and reorganize. The shoes are pretty much kept in place by the wrapping paper stored in a bag behind them. hope this suggestion helps!

BEDBUGS! My cure has a special twist: I just found bedbugs. So over the next week I have to remove everything from every shelf, closet and drawer and close it in plastic. then have the exterminator come. Then wait 3 weeks for a second treatment before returning all belongings to their rightful places. The bright side is that I'll really get to clean and organize and probably throw out a lot of stuff. The bad news is I'll be a few weeks behind the rest of you. But I'll keep plugging along. Wish me luck!

Astronauta--I have another idea too: an over the door shoe storage (cloth or metal) that hangs on the door. If you use the cloth kind the shoes are mostly hidden and it won't look too bad. OR if you like you could hang a nice patterned fabric over top to hide the whole thing. http://www.taylorgifts.com/item/20_pocket_over_door_shoe_organizer/29676

For me personally, an entry way of shoes is not peaceful. It's a peeve. I totally get how to some it is a way of transitioning from outside to inside and vice versa. Also what works for others is fine by me. I have a keep the shoes-on house, which a lot of people really don't like. But seeing clutter as the first thing welcoming me home is not my preference. I like to feel there is a clear path in/out. I think I'd need to hide the shoes somehow. Or at the very least, maybe just have the ones for that day sitting at the door and the rest in a closet somewhere.

the space available for my landing strip is very small. i'm glad that Maxwell's space is not perfectly "neat" but still functional and a little spread out. mine is too, and somehow i feel better about it now.

I think my two main things are my dog's leash (which I manage to misplace everywhere and can then never find when she REALLY needs to go out) and mail that I want to shred (I have a spot for recycling, trash and mail to read, but all the junk mail that I get that I want to shred needs a home...)

My husband and I made a cross-country move to Denver, CO, in July. We went from a 2 bedroom HOUSE to a 1 bedroom apartment. One of the first things I insisted on was a landing strip! (I read the book this summer and that was the first thing I wanted in our new apartment!) I have an old icebox that my father found and refinished. I love this piece of furniture but our apartment is so small that my husband didn't think we had room for it. Well, I knew it would be perfect for our landing strip. And it is! It's full of storage for things like bike locks & lights, scarves & hats. We have a basket on top for keys and such, a mail organizer, and there's still room for fresh flowers! Next to it by the door we have coat hooks for our bags and coats. We leave our shoes on the floor under the coats until they eventually make it into the bedroom closet. There isn't enough room for all of our shoes to be stored by the door.

I'll post pics tonight...

I love our landing strip. The only thing it doesn't house well is my laptop bag. I need to find a place for that...

My landing strip was created after my first read-through of Apartment Therapy last summer. I had just moved into a new apartment and also just gotten married. We were still very disorganized but I KNEW getting that entrance point to our home "settled" and useful would make me feel so much better about the longer process of settling into a new place.

My front door opens into a walkway that leads right into our living room/office space on the left and kitchen on the right. There is one small front closet, and the walkway is narrowed somewhat by desk placement in the office space. But there is a nice expanse of wall right past the closet door.

SO: the closet houses shopping bags, backpacks, the laundry detergent bottle (so I can grab it on my way to the laundry room in our building), mop and broom, umbrellas, kites, winter coats when needed and my husband's computer parts and home repair tools. Also my camera gear bag (I'm a semi-professional photographer).

Along that nice expanse of wall, I hung a black mirror with a narrow shelf below and pegs under the shelf - here I hang my purse and scarves, keys on the shelf beside two of my favorite knicknacks: a tiny black stone gargoyle named Mort and a beautiful seashell from a trip to the Outer Banks.

Right next to it is a black-framed half bulletin board half white board. The bulletin board holds invitations, lists, reminders, checks to be deposited, etc and the white board (which is also magnetic) has one or two pretty pictures and a calendar of the current month drawn on by yours truly, with birthdays, appointments and other important dates marked.

On the lower half of the white wall, I applied one of those great wall-art sticker things, in gray, of tall sprigs of small flowers. I love the soft touch of color and shape, the hint of nature in the sprigs.

At the moment, my lovely landing strip is also the location of my "Outbox" but when it is NOT thus cluttered, it's a welcome entre to my home, and an easy place to leave and find the stuff that comes in and out with us.

Shoes are sorted with a big Ikea box at the door. A place to store them and a place to put them on. Boys shoes live in a little basket on top. Even easier to get to. Gloves and hats hang in a little bag on a peg in the same room and coats also live here. I try to limit everyone to one seasonal coat in this area, but like the shoe box, I have to edit sometimes. The only thing that is hard to organize is our post and homework. I tend to keep these things on the dining table as you come in the door and they do tend to clutter up, especially if we've had a busy week. I get complaints about that from my husband.

Mail and dog accoutrements. Vintage wire displays with hooks from ebay, etsy, or flea markets are great for hanging keys, leashes, and bags, like this one:

http://bit.ly/25ZgLP

I keep my keys clipped to my handbag. Paper goes directly to my home office, where junk is junked and most other paper, once dealt with, is scanned & shredded. This has been the single biggest improvement I've made re clutter EVER! The biggest landing strip problems we've had in our two small cottages (1100 sq. ft, 550 sq. ft.) are shoe & coat storage. We solved the shoe problem in the "big house" years ago by adding piano hinges to our stair treads - the treads lift up and we store our shoes in the stairs! For the "little house" we added a tiny addition last year - a mud room with a coat closet as one wall. Both houses have a place to sit & take your shoes off - a small chair in the "big house" and a ceramic garden stool in the "little house." See photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/lakehouse/sets/72157622551199895/

Lizzy-- I've been coveting that bench from Shaker Workshops for ages! I just wonder how difficult assembly would be. It would be a sacrifice to spring for the kit-- the already-assembled price is way way way out of reach.

I am sorry but all of this seems like such an impossible task. I'm just too tired when I get home from work and too busy on the weekends to take anything out of any room not to speak of deciding where to put or what to do with. My friend hired a teenage and then a retired person to help her but then she was retired herself.

Hawaiipawn, don't despair - it's not about the work, it's about making your home what you want it to be. Just do what you have the energy for. :)

hawaiipawn, i know what you mean. i work full-time and have a toddler and preschooler at home (with their dad). it can be tricky getting everyone's needs met and finding time/energy for housework, and i'm not great at it, but i find that i can get a lot done in 20 or 30 minutes. just break up the work into tiny chunks and do what you can!

I had a nice landing strip in my last house. A hall tree was on one side of the front door convenient for coats, scarves, bags and purses. On the other side was a lovely, old bamboo bookcase filled with old books and on top a dish with my keys. Well, one night someone came up onto the porch with a hoe, bashed out one of the panes of glass in the door,hooked my purse and pulled it out. As my husband and I crouched upstairs, I felt lucky that the intruder only came that far. At four in the morning, I was scrambling to cancel credit cards. The police said that my purse and keys belonged somewhere else. I am only thankful that the burglar did not see the keys in the dish by the door.

I don't quite understand the thing with the shoes. What's wrong with just taking them off at the door and storing them in the closet on a rack or in one of those over the door organizers? I bought a nice cloth one at Bed, Bath and Beyond and it has worked for me; and my husband refers to me as Imelda!

NorNor,

My front door opens right into my living room so I don't want shoes lying all over either. My solution: shoes I use a lot (flip flops n uggs, as well as a variety of slippers) go in a urn normally used to hold plants on one side of the door. It's big enough to hold em all. Before I go to bed, I put the shoes I wore that day in the closet.

cheers,
Abby

Maxwell, I think you have an NYFD fire code violation in your hallway.

By law, no combustible items (cardboard, cloth, etc.) are allowed to be stored in hallways, and there are also regulations about the minimum width of the hallway for access.

I'm not saying this to be a critic of it as a design decision. I've had a fire in my family home. I've seen friends lose apartments to fires. And I've seen how seriously the NYFD takes it when they don't have easy access (in full gear) to apartment doors. This landing strip may work for you and your family in the short term, but you're risking a serious fine for yourself or your landlord, and it's a safety hazard.

I need a landing strip for most of the things that go in and out of the house with us most days. Most of our shoes do well in the closet, but we need a place for the farm boots (cuz they get gross). I've got a mountable rack with 4 3-pronged hooks to hang by our front door for our winter coats. The biggest problem is that the same stuff doesn't go out every time we go out. I have one set of stuff that goes with me to one store and a different set of stuff that goes with me to the 2nd store. Then I have a a set of stuff that goes with us to church and a set of stuff that goes with us to the farm. Right now, I have a hall tree with 4 2-pronged hooks with a wooden bench seat and an end table with a 31-day slotted bill box but they are horribly cluttered.

I'm really behind! Augh. I just moved into my new apartment in week 1 of the cure, and am only now finishing putting things away and beginning to decorate. I am worn out and having trouble catching up. Please wish me luck, everyone. As for my landing strip, most used and guests' shoes go under the couch, and I will soon be installing a small shelf with hooks underneath. Coats and such will go on the hooks, and on the top... Slippers! An old friend of mine had this in his home: he wanted people's shoes off in the house but also wanted everyone to be comfortable, so he kept a bunch of slippers handy for people to wear in lieu of their shoes. I intend to get some of that spray they use on bowling alley shoes to keep any ickiness at bay.

P.S. to Beccane: I'm so sorry to hear about your bedbugs! How awful. I wish you a speedy extermination.

Good luck cellosubmarine- the fact that you are already unpacked is a huge accomplishment in such a short time.

I am about a week behind in the homework right now (just finally finished week one, and some of week two- but not the kitchen part- ah!).

I am doing the cure with my husband and he goes at a slower pace than I do and we've agreed to do things together- the motivation for me to actually do every assignment with him is that its mostly his stuff that has to be purged and gone through and he needs some motivation. I am a relentless purger of my own stuff but he is very attached to his- yet going through the book and assignments is actually helping slowly- there is a huge pile in our outbox right now. But still many boxes to go through.

Our living room looks awesome now that we moved a whole bunch of clutter from in front of the windows (which we had to do when cleaning the floors for weeks one assignment)- but now some of that clutter is just sitting in the dinning room).

Hopefully after Sunday afternoon we'll be caught up with assignments from week 2 and 3- we plan to work on it more Thursday night, Saturday night and Sunday morning.

We have a mini landing strip created in last Spring's cure- but it's not big enough for our mail, so we'd like to get a slim table- anyone know of good resources for the ones I see in the pictures on this post? I'd love to find a used one (but don't even know what to call them in a search).

Is it me, or does the "approach" photo above look incredibly messy?
If I was visiting someone with such a cluttered entrance, I probably wouldn't stay very long, thinking that the apartment may be picked up/cleaned for my visit but probably not very sanitary. And if that was one of the first views of my home, I think I'd be sad. Actually, I would probably get a bigger shelf, piece of furniture, or cubby that would fit all the shoes to replace the low shoe shelf that's currently there; and I'd definitely buy a cute, thin recycling bin for the cardboard so that it doesn't look like trash is just piled by the door. And maybe a more colorfull doormat.

Sorry Maxwell, I hope you don't mind the critique. The other photos are a good way to show how distributed a landing strip can be.

And maybe add the thinnest bench available for under the shelf with the umbrellas, so you have a spot to sit while you put your shoes on. That way you and the family aren't doing some crazy balancing acts first thing in the morning, or sitting on the floor when putting on your shoes.

Anyways, just a thought.

Another thought for the photos above - instead of the wine rack, you could have a landing strip.

My project for the weekend is the "crap bag" - i have no filter or routine for my mail and other things i bring in, so when i clean every week i stuff it in this bag in my dining room, and it's growing. I am going to make my entry way way more organized and leave my bag at the door, and stopped kicking my shoes off around the house. the main thing is the mail routine, though. i have really old stuff in that bag.

I'm so behind too!! I haven't really even started but I have everything saved in a Word Doc to drag home with me and go through this weekend! I'm MEGA busy. I work full time, go to TWO schools part time, single mom, design and sell handbags online, yada yada, so bear with me as well as I try and catch up this weekend! My house is a disaster right now since I've been doing this crazy schedule for about 2 years now so bear with me and don't laugh to hard at my before pics!! Seriously, I'm not a haurder I swear, the organization and cleaning has just gotten away from me and I really want to get it taken care of!

My daughter and I are also planning to move to LA next August so she can attend college AND audition for stuff (budding actress) so part of my CURE is to purge and get ready to live in a itty bitty apartment ;o)

Here is my Flickr I started for inspiration for our future sunny home in LA. As for now, I just want to reduce, organize and clean! I do want to kind of redecorate but on a low budget and mostly with things we can take with us so I will base those changes on our mood board for our new apartment!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/44024414@N05/

Thanks, EHG! Would be happy to see pictures of your progress if they are up anywhere.