Guest Post: Coat Closet Organization & Italian Stew
Today’s guest post comes to us from Laura over at Heavenly Homemakers. Laura is participating in this month’s challenge by doing an overhaul on one of her closets. I’m thinking some hooks may help here. My kids ignore hangers too but for whatever reason a hook they can manage. Welcome Laura!
If you’re in the midst of Organizing Junkie’s 28 Day Challenge, I would imagine that you are working hard to clean out that cluttered space you’ve been trying up until now to avoid. I have a space like that. It’s the special place where we keep our coats that I like to call “the coat closet” (clever, huh?).
I try to keep The Coat Closet cleaned up and organized, but the four boy children in my life don’t seem to think that putting their hats and gloves into baskets and buckets is as cute as I think it is. After a while, I just give up and pray that for the love of all things sane and proper the door stays shut when guests come over.
It looks a little something like this:
Uh-huh – that’s why I insist on keeping the door shut.
I am not proud of this (although I think my kids might be). Therefore YES, I am participating in the 28 Day Challenge. Surely I can find a solution for this mess by the end of the month. (Summer-time weather is one solution I was sort of thinking would be helpful, but since it’s still only February and we live in Nebraska, I’m going to have to come up with something else.)
Anyway, if at any time during the 28 Day Challenge you find yourself right in the middle of happy-cleaning-and-organizational-bliss and just don’t want to lose your momentum by stopping to cook for people who are too hungry to appreciate your organizational bliss, I thought I’d offer you a healthy, easy meal that you can prepare ahead of time.
My favorite part of this meal is that it is a High Five Recipe (high quality recipe…Five ingredients or less!). Even better is that you can throw all the ingredients into the crock pot, go work on your 28 Day Challenge Project, come back three hours later and dinner is ready. That, my friends, is what I call multi-tasking.
Italian Stew
1 pound chopped stew meat
6-8 medium potatoes, scrubbed and cut into bite sized chunks
2 cups frozen green beans
2 T. italian dressing mix (I have a great, healthy homemade mix recipe here) or 1/2 prepared package of Italian Dressing Mix
Stir together all ingredients in a crock pot. Cook on low for about 3 hours.
It’s an entire meal in one pot. I love it when that happens!
You’ll find more High Five Recipes here to help save you time and still allow you to prepare a healthy meal for your family on busy days!
Alright…I’m off to get to work on that coat closet. Any suggestions or advice for me? Please?
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I’m definitely going to try the recipe, but when I clicked the link to the guest post, it was all about truffles, not her organizing dilemma. Hm…
Jen the link is to Laura’s high five recipe archives not an organizing post. She was just letting us know she was participating and which area she is concentrating on.
I come from a family where I’m the oldest of four siblings (2 boys, 2 girls.) We had a small entry way and when we were growing up my mom made us “pockets.”
She went to the fabric store and bought a few meters of demin materials and basically folded it in half and sewed the bottom closed then sewed three lines through the middle, dividing the fabric into four “pockets.” She then mounted it on a board and screwed the board into the wall so the weight of all the winter stuff wouldn’t pull it off the wall. We each had our own pocket to shove our stuff into when we got home (which wasn’t always great because if you mitts were sopping wet they were still damp the next morning, but what are you going to do?)
Our boots went onto the boot rack below it and we threw our jackets on the floor (we were kids!) adn then my Mom would hang them on hangers. but I think hooks would have worked for us.
the pockets kept everyone’s stuff seperate and organized, stuffing them into this thing on the wall was effective enought that my two year old sister did it (I was about 9, my brothers were in between us.) and it kept everything hidden. Our pockets were big enough that they held scarves (cause it was the 80s and you were still allowed to wear scarves!) two or three pairs of mitts, hats, sun hats, etc. Then demin was sturdy enough material that this thing, though well abused over the years, was only thrown out when we moved from that home to my parents current home about five years later.
It was thin, didn’t take much room unlike a wooden stand (but it a larger thing, and has to be mounted to a wall.) Becuase it’s not a stand, no additional junk is piled on it, so that’s good, and each kid could decorate their pocket (we always talked about it but never did.)
My children are two and four and I have two little “coat racks” hung on the walls in our entry way at “kid height”. Each has three pegs, and they both hang their ski pants and jackets up when we get home. they each have a small basket to put their hats and mitts in on the shelf, although because it’s a shelf its cluttered up with keys, mail, junk, etc so that part doesn’t work well. I have baskets for them to put their stuff in but no where to store the baskets in my closet so they don’t use them.
I’m intersted in your solution!
Hi there! I happen to have an idea that you might be able to use for the kid’s mittens and scarves. It’s a canvas bag tote that hangs on the wall – take a look here:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4072/4340332514_596175df88_o.jpg
and here:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4051/4340332548_85a206f4e5_o.jpg
I am actually hoping to build one of these to hang on my wall in my home office…My thought was to place them next to my sewing station to hold sewing stuff in or even to use them to hold file folders and/or mail in. You could put one on the wall in the closet at a height that the kids could easily reach.
I think hooks are in order. Maybe shelves or something. I know I put a hook thingy next to the door at their level. Then I was think you could lower the bar to their height so they can hang up their own coats. I have the same issue, but my kids’ coats all end up all over the couch and whatnot. Good luck.
i think big boxes on the floor of the closet. unless the mittens etc have to dry out and then you could use skirt hanger with those clips on the closet pole to hold those. We also had a hall tree in the entrance when our kids were small. Or try a long peg rack with way more pegs than children.
I have the same problem with my coat closet! I found these homemade lockers at ikea hacker: http://ikeahacker.blogspot.com/2009/11/expedit-lockers.html#comment-form
and thought about just putting one in my closet and taking the doors off! I think, as simple as it sounds, just dropping the step of opening the doors would help. It would also force me to look at it more often : 0 My closet it too small so I am still looking, but I thought I’d share…
Wanda- I love those canvas organizers! Where did you find them – I’d love to buy one!