Quick fix: The coat closet

Hello and happy Thursday! Sigh. I love Thursdays.

So you know when you have an issue in your house and you deal with it every. single. day. and then one day you figure out a reeeeally simple solution and it feels like you’re on top of the world and the most brilliant person ever?

Well, that happened to me the other day. The problem started back in August, on the first day of school.

Suddenly that day, a trail of little Bubby stuff started showing up every day right after school. We didn’t have the hat and gloves back then of course, but now we’re graced with their dumpage as soon as he walks in the door:

The shedding continues into the family room or kitchen:

And usually ends on the family room rug or sectional:

EVERY single day my call was the same – hang them in the laundry mud room!! (I’m still getting used to the fact that we have a REAL mud room now. GLEEE.)

But thing is, the mud room still looks like this:

Bright yellow, which I think scares the boy (it’s starting to me), and the hooks (that you can’t really see) are hung too high. And those hooks are filled with bags and hats and stuff we don’t use day to day which I know makes TOTAL sense. But the real issue is that he’s too short to reach them.

Add to that, in the morning we don’t head out to the bus stop that way, we leave via the front door. So I started having him hang them on the outside door knob to the coat closet that I organized back in September:

I am THRILLED to say it has stayed organized!

But having them on the outside of the door was annoying. Every time I went to get in there one of them fell off and it was just awkward. Here’s the thing -- I know I could hang his coat and backpack in the closet every day, but really? I don’t want to. I wanted an easy spot for it all that he could easily access.

So I was about to just sort through the stuff in the mud room and move the hooks down so he could reach but honestly, I don’t really want to mess with that space again until I start the built ins in there.

But then…then the perfect solution came to me while cleaning out the storage room a few weeks ago: 

It’s drapery tie back. I’ve mentioned before that I use them all over the house, and I mentioned in the coat closet post that I used them for our scarves. They are awesome because they are really deep and long and hold a lot of stuff. Way better/bigger than a normal hook.

I don’t use tie backs on our drapes anymore, so as soon as I found this one in the pile ‘o stuff in the basement I did a little happy jig cause I knew exactly where it was going:

I just installed it right in the middle of the door so it was at the perfect height for the kiddo.

We have solid wood doors so it’s easy to drill these right in. If you have hollow-core doors you will probably want to use anchors, at least if you’re going to hang something heavy like a coat or backpack. Something like scarves would be fine without an anchor I imagine.

So simple it’s just silly, but it WORKS! Now when the shedding starts I immediately point to the closet and he knows where it all goes:

I should have made the vacuum cord pretty for you…but I didn’t. ;)

Funny how it’s easier for him to help when he can reach where he’s putting them. Huh. Who would have thought. :)

Until we get the mud room done this is a perfect solution for us. You’d think it would get in the way of the door shutting but it doesn’t – once in a while I have to move a scarf out of the way, but for the most part it’s no problem.

And here’s the reason it takes me 50 pictures to get one good one:

 

These two. And the cats. All little photobombers.

And the shirt…I die. I know. :)

Have you figured out a simple fix for something that was driving you crazy? Isn’t it the best feeling ever?? Well, at least pretty high up there. Organizing makes me HAPPY.