http://www.ClutterDiet.com Get organized with home organizing tips from professional organizers at The Clutter Diet. Is leaving and entering your home riddled with complications leading to great aggravation? When you look for your keys is there an escalation in your desperation to find them? Every home has an entryway, so let's take the frustration out of this essential location. In today's video Lorie Marrero share strategies so you can create what she calls a "Destination Station". Following these tips will make getting out the door of your habitation an emigration to elation. Just a little preparation can start your transformation to front door jubilation. These Clutter Video Tips are posted frequently here on our clutterdiet organizing channel. You can search Twitter for #ClutterVideoTip also to find comments on our organizing tips. Lorie Marrero is the creator of ClutterDiet.com and the author of The Clutter Diet: The Skinny on Organizing Your Home and Taking Control of Your Life. Lorie also serves as the national spokesperson for Goodwill Industries International and ambassador of the Donate Movement.
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Hi I'm Lorie Marrero, creator of the Clutter Diet book and online program Today we're going to talk about destination stations, which is my phrase for where you enter and exit the house the most often and you pick things up when you leave and you put things down when you come home. Some people have trouble implementing this idea in their homes. Maybe you live in an apartment or a town home or maybe you have a narrow hallway where you come in from your back door and it's hard for you to figure out how to create this. I have a couple of ideas for you that are a little unconventional. People are expecting what they see in a magazine when they think of having this kind of entryway piece. They like the idea of having a locker for everyone and everyone's got their own hook with their name on it and it's all picture perfect. That might not be realistic for your home.
One of the things we do is repurpose other pieces of furniture and use pieces of furniture that are small that we can piece together. A bench is common in an entryway situation, and it's perfect because you want to be able to sit down and put on your shoes or take off your shoes. You want a flat surface to put things down as you need to when you're coming and going. Here's the mistake people make with benches. They buy a bench that has a hinged lid that makes the storage accessible from the top. If you're trying to pull this lid open and get down to the storage that is not going to work very effectively. It's human nature to pile things on top of this surface and it's going to be hard to get in and out of there. If you already have the bench, don't worry; just make sure you store items inside that are C or D items. Things that you're not going to need to access very often. Don't put peoples' daily stuff in there and expect them to open and close that every day.
What you want to do if you're buying a bench is look for one that has the storage accessible from the front. This one's made by ClosetMaid. They have different colors of fabric cubes that fit in here, which I love, and you can pull the cube out, get what's in here, and then push it back in.
Another issue is that you might not be able to have the destination station all in one place. It's okay for you to do a two-part destination station. I do this here in my house. I live in a town home where I have multiple floors. When I come in have Part 1, where I hang my coat and I hang the keys on a hook. Then I come upstairs to the main living area and I have this bench where I put my purse down and I have other items that I need to take out with me. This is a flat surface so that in the main living area I have a place to put things as I think of it, and then I can grab them as I go out to the bottom floor.
Think about having that Part 1 and Part 2. Maybe you walk in a narrow hallway, put your keys on a hook and walk to the end of the hallway and set up a destination station in the beginning part of the kitchen or whatever that room is.
You can repurpose any kind of furniture for this that has a flat surface, and maybe a few drawers. Someone I know used an old antique sewing table, and it looks very charming. You can even drill a hole in the back of that furniture and into a drawer, run the charger cords through there for your phones, and have a nice hideaway charging station. There are all kinds of creative ways to do this. Use hooks, other furniture, other rooms, and make this work for you. It does not have to look like a magazine photo.
If you like these tips, check out the rest of our YouTube Channel. You can find us at http://www.clutterdiet.tv.
See you next time, and may you always be happy and grateful for having more than enough.
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