Organising the Front Entrance with a Shoe Cabinet

The front entrance is a part of the home that really can become messy and cluttered if we don't have a good organisation system in place.  I have tried many things over the years, and most of them I admit have failed miserably.

One essential piece of furniture in our front entryway (it sits just around the corner from the actual entrance) is this great shoe cabinet from Ikea.  You can view it on their website here.

Basically, it is a really slim cabinet that has four drawers, designed for shoe storage.  The drawers only open so far, holding your shoes in place.  I keep my own shoes in my walk-in-robe, but I desperately needed a system for my husband's shoes - which lived 'wherever he kicked them off', which is usually just inside the front door!  Like most men, he doesn't have many shoes, so we only really use 2 drawers for his shoes (thongs and slip-ons).

The beloved 'Vans'.

I keep his good shoes for weddings, etc in boxes in the walk-in-robe, since he only uses these occasionally, why take up a prime location in the front of the home that could be re-allocated to something else that needs a home?!

In one of the other drawers I store our hats and beanies.  These are another item that tend to get ripped off as soon as we walk in the door and dumped wherever they land.  Also, they are something that we tend to grab as we are walking out the door.  So, it makes sense to actually store them at the entryway...

And the last drawer is my favourite...  It is my 'junk mail' drawer!!  I hate having piles of catalogues and newspapers on the bench, but I just LOVE tucking them in here, and saving them for my Saturday morning coffee in the sun  :)

Another great bonus of this system is that the top is really narrow...  It has minimal space, which means that minimal amount of room for 'stuff' to pile up on it.  The more flat space in a house, the more junk that gets piled up on it.  I just love that this is so slimline, it really only has room for a few items on top.

And to keep the top organised, I have 2 little baskets to hold all of Mick's bits and pieces - wallet, phone, key, sunnies, camera, receipts, change, and all of the other precious things that men strangely bring home and like to keep ;)  And if the items happen to be left on the kitchen bench, I can easily pop them into the baskets and Mick knows exactly where to look next time he is looking for something.

So, there is my great storage solution for the front of the home!  In the new catalogue, Ikea has released a newer version of the cabinet (which you can see here).  It appears to have twice the depth of shoe storage and I just love the little drawer at the top!  That would be a very handy hidey-hole for some special items!