A Bowl full of Lemons Challenge 2: The Launch Pad

This week's challenge at A Bowl Full of Lemons was to create or revamp your "Launch Pad". This is the area most commonly located right inside your front door, where your coats, shoes, backpacks, etc are. An area that can quickly become quite cluttered, the first area seen by guests entering your home.

This challenge was first posted last Sunday and when I saw it I knew there wasn't much I could do with it this week. My husband spent all of last weekend and the majority of this week down and out with a cold, no motivation or energy to do anything. I have big plans for this area, but none that could be completed in a week, and definitely not this past week.

I did clean this area up a bit though this week.
Here is the view of our front entryway from coming down our stairs.

One of the baskets on top of the shelf is for ballcaps, the other is for umbrellas.

Each of the kids have their own bin for hats, mitts and scarves and then Jeff and I have a bin as well.

The basket on the table is the catch all for various trinkets and treasures. Inside the little drawer in the table is our sunscreen and bugspray ( a drawer which sees a lot more action in the summer). Makenna's swim and dance bags are on the shelf under the table, and in the yellow bag on the floor are small reusable bags to take to the library, the Farmer's Market, on small shopping trips, etc. I keep our reusable bags and bins for grocery shopping in my vehicle.

This area is much less crowded in the Spring, Summer and Fall, when we aren't contending with boots, winter coats and winter accessories.

My eventual plan includes a row of hooks on the wall above the boots, about level with the table, to hang backpacks, purses, briefcases, bags, etc on, just to get them off the floor.

The other plan is to knock this wall out and create a coat closet, taking it back as far as the window. There would be a shelf above the coats, as well as a couple down below, and hopefully this would house a lot of our stuff and keep it behind closed doors, creating a much "neater" area.

Thats the plan anyways :)

I'm always open to suggestions!

You can see the challenge post, as well as the launch pads from other bloggers participating, here. I also really liked her post this week about storing cutlery.

On to the next challenge!