Or trying to get coats, hats and mittens on right here.
Yea, that's just not gonna happen. ;)
Here's what I've done....
We try to keep the area by the door clear. There are a few things to note here though. There is a small mirror, and under it we hang the keys. On the other side of/behind the door is the "take me" bag. This is where we are supposed to toss anything that needs to leave our home (within reasonable size), this would include returns to stores, items left here by friends, things we are loaning or returning to a friend...you get the idea. We also hung some hooks that we use for "grown up" coats etc. In the corner of the picture (going down the stairs) you can see our large wall map.... It is supposed to be used to mark the countries we're praying for from the Voice of the Martyrs calendar (we're having a hard time getting back into that habit).
Up the stairs from the entry (we have a split level) is the main coat closet. This one is for the girls as well as Mommy and Daddy. I'll start at the bottom and work my way up in explaining the set up. First we have a "bench" with three cubes labeled with their content. We left enough space on the sides for a couple of bags we knew would need to go there. Behind the bench is where we place our Large Utility Totes and Deluxe Utility Totes when not in use. On the bench you will usually find our church bags; these are kept packed and ready to go which can be helpful in the cases of a busy week or even an emergency. Moving up...We have hooks for little kid hoodies/coats. They can't reach the hangers, this makes it easier for them to find what they need. The higher hooks on the side hold miscellaneous items. The rod is for hanging coats; generally there are none here; this space is just for guests. On the shelf we have some "on-the-go" supplies (to go tissues, wipes, bibs, lotion, hand sanitizer....) and the other bin for miscellaneous/out of season storage, the thermal is used for our water bottles when out and about. You'll notice that we removed the folding/sliding doors that had been here. We replaced them with a pretty shower curtain and rod. It slides easily and hides the mess nicely.
Down the stairs from the entry is where you will find the boy's coat closet. It's not as pretty. The hooks are for coats/hoodies. The shelf holds hats and gloves. As you can see; I'm not using this space to its full potential, I need to do some more cleaning out and organizing. I also need to use this space better. Since this is our "under stair" storage space, it goes way back. I store most of our holiday decor back here as well as some seasonal school stuff.
What makes this set up work for us? Only half of us are getting ready to go in each area so we're not as crowded as if I had everyone keep their coats etc in one spot. Everything we generally need for "on the go" is kept in these areas making it easy to find what we need quickly as we're headed out.
