Summer is in full swing around here, and consequently, we are outside (and back inside…and outside again) ALL. DAY. LONG. I love this season of daily pool trips, sprinklers, mowing, and more…but it all involves a revolving door and the constant dropping and grabbing of stuff inside the entries to our home.
Tips and tricks for summer organizing
Go through everything
The first step to organizing is corralling ALL the things. Think towels, sunnies, sandals, sunscreen, bug spray. I admittedly loooove an organization project, so it took little motivation to jump right in to what I call my “purge and plan” mode.
First, I pulled out every pair of summer shoes for all three of us, every variation of a “pool bag” and its contents, hats/sunglasses, you name it. I went through all of it, and asked for input from my guys. We ditched a few things along the way because they were either worn out or expired, so we only had what we really needed when it came time to find a home for it all.
Create Zones
Most of our coming and going is through our mudroom/garage entry, with some secondary storage in the coat closet near our front door. I considered these my two “zones” with which to work. I spent a little time thinking about what items we used when, and dove in accordingly:
Shoes were easy — we need them before we head out the door, obviously. We stash them in the mudroom. We each have a bucket, big enough to hold multiple pairs of tennis shoes and flip flops. We keep our nicer shoes in our master closet and anything particularly messy like rain boots or my husband’s mowing shoes stay in the garage.
All three of us are lost without our sunglasses, and we’ve accumulated quite the collection. I hacked this sunglasses storage solution last year. My hubby added an extra deep frame around an Ikea canvas I already had. I ordered a couple sunglass displays from Etsy and mounted them with 3M strips. The result is hidden storage, easy to grab on the way out the door. It’s one of my favorite storage solutions to date, (and doubles as a hiding spot for our unsightly sprinkler and alarm panel cords)!
The sunscreens, towels, and other swimming gear made more sense to keep in a secondary zone — the coat closet. It’s more of an intentional act to grab that stuff when we have a pool trip planned. We don’t need it every time we come in and out of the house. To give myself some space to start, I moved the winter coats to the basement for the season. I stole the shoe caddy idea from my mom years ago. I hang it on the door with 3M hooks (I can’t stand the over the door hooks that show on the other side). In the winter this holds ear muffs and gloves. For this season, I have all my summer lotions, sprays, and goggles sorted and ready to grab.
Beach towels get rolled up and stashed in this cart (from Target!) so it’s easy for everyone to reach and help themselves. It’s quick and easy to stash and I’m not hung up on nice, neat, piles of folded towels. (In the winter, the cart is great for corralling hats, mittens, scarves, and ski socks.) We tend to rotate which toys go to the pool each time, so the ongoing stash is set up in here. Our rule is if we run out of room for toys, we have to get rid of some. Our pool bag, ready to pack each time, is the final thing we house in here.
I have a kid in diapers and one who is potty training. Even spending the morning in the backyard means trips into the house for diaper/underwear changes, snacks, drinks, etc. I use a caddy from the dollar store to stash a diaper and wipes, hand sanitizer, backup clothes for the older child, snacks and drinks, and bug spray or sunscreen. It’s now so much simpler to just go outside!
I LOVE that! We keep something similar in the car — we can take off for the park, etc without having to plan quite so much!
Is that a shark kickboard?? ? where’d you get it? I love this list!!
It’s from Target (dollar spot) – but I’ve seen a similar one at Von Maur just as cute!