A hallway or entranceway is an often overlooked but incredibly important space in your home. Importantly, it’s the first and last space you see when entering or leaving and its appearance can have a profound impact on the way you feel. It’s often an area that my clients want to improve so I thought I would write a little blog post that outlines my Top 8 Decluttering Tips to create a hallway to be proud of.
A cluttered, untidy space will do little to boost your mood as you walk in the door at the end of a busy day! However, taking a bit of time to create an organised hallway that is both functional and beautiful can make an enormous difference to the feel of your home. Nobody wants to be searching for keys under piles of unopened post or searching for a missing shoe!
Here are my 8 Decluttering Tips to create a hallway to be proud of.
1. Declutter first.
A hallway isn’t an area of our home in which we spend a lot of time and it’s easy to forget what’s being kept in there. Are you still storing the children’s hockey sticks which haven’t been used for years or coats that you no longer like? The first tip for creating a hallway that you can be proud of is to thoroughly declutter it. Every drawer, coat hook and shoe rack.
2. Tackle your post.
Despite living in the digital age, it’s amazing how much post we still receive! It’s all too often left to pile up on a table in the hallway, making the process of sorting through it, much more daunting. I find the best way to deal with the post is to sort it immediately and ideally, next to the recycling bin! If there’s a post that you are regularly receiving but it contains information that you can access online (like bank statements), you can often stop these being sent to you.
3. Keys
If everything has a place, you’re much more likely to put things back and it’s the same with keys. There’s nothing worse than not being able to find your car keys at 7:30am. Allocate a drawer, dish or hook for keys and make a concerted effort to form the habit of putting them back there each time.
4. Reduce opportunity.
If there’s a console table in your hallway which is becoming a dumping ground, why not spend a bit of time styling it up with a beautiful vase filled with flowers or photographs? The better your hallway looks, the less likely you are to dump clutter in it.
5. Shoes
Pull all of your shoes out of the cupboard/ off the rack and have a really good sort through. It’s easy for shoes that you wore for the Christmas party or an evening out to become mixed up amongst your everyday ones. Make sure it’s only those that you wear regularly and are appropriate for the season that you keep in the hallway. Are they in pairs? Do they still fit? Create a dedicated area for shoe storage or you could even allocate a basket for each member of the family.
6. Coats
It’s often a similar situation with coats to shoes. Do you have your warmest winter jackets hanging in your hallway in summer? If you rotate your clothes and shoes with the seasons, it frees up space in the hallway and prevents it from becoming overcrowded.
7. Children’s admin
Children will inevitably come home with endless birthday invites, school trip letters and parents’ evening slips. In this situation, you may find it useful to have holders for each child, mounted to the wall which they pop everything in at the end of the day or week.
8. Remove everything that doesn’t belong in the hallway.
It’s amazing what can accumulate in the hallway. You name it, tennis balls, parcels you should have taken back, packed lunch boxes- the list goes on! In order to avoid this area becoming cluttered, make sure it’s only the items that you need for walking out of the door that accumulate here.
If you would like some help to declutter your home, we would love to hear from you.