Winning the Clutter Battle, Part 1

Recently, I read the most amazing book for homeschoolers by Barbara Rockett called Homeschooling at the Speed of Life. 

She had many excellent points, but the main one that stuck with me was that people are more important than things, and if things are getting in the way of your relationships, then you really must do something about the things!

So, convicted deeply, I decided step one would be to sort out the very first room in my house: the porch.  With four children and a husband who never gets rid of shoes, regardless how hole-y they are, I had a serious clutter problem there.

These aren't actually my shoes, but it gives you the idea!

We were using the tall Trofast buckets you get at Ikea, one for each child, and a row of 4 hooks for their jackets.  However, as the children grew bigger and bigger, their jackets draped over the youngest one's shoe bucket, thus covering it up.  To get to his shoes, he would toss the jackets on the floor. They would get trampled, tossed into another corner or behind a different bucket, or buried under someone else's shoes in a different bucket.

Basically, the system (system?? ha-ha) wasn't working.

And this doesn't even touch on the melee when we had our fortnightly co-op and 14 other children plus 6 other parents show up on our doorstep.


After hours of research on the web in trying to find the right solution (and a solution that fit the dimensions of space we had!), I settled on these plastic cupboards.

They're designed for use in the garden as extra utility sheds. Many people who have reviewed them complain that they're not waterproof, but since I'm using them indoors, I don't mind about that.

Best of all, they snap together in only a few minutes (on average -- the first one took us about an hour, and the second, about 6 minutes!).

I found them at a shop called ShedStore in the UK, but if you're looking for them elsewhere, they're called Chaselink Large Utility cabinets.  Their reviews are really good, and after looking at many, many items that had BAD reviews, I would warn you off buying imitators.

I realise that we'll still have the problem of 20 extra pairs of shoes next Monday, but now I have four empty Trofast buckets which should do the trick!