How to: Tame Household Clutter with a DIY Home Landing Strip

We don’t like to admit it, but it’s beginning to be that time of year when the things we bring into the house start to get bigger and bulkier. In the warm months, it’s a bag or briefcase, your phone, and a few essentials for work, but in the cooler months, enter the coats, boots, hats, gloves, snow shovels, in addition to the magazines, mail, your keys and all the other things that come inside with you. Over the last year or so, we’ve become committed to leaving these items in the entryway (or in our case, the little threshold areas around our back and front doors), and I admit that it’s completely helped tame the everyday clutter of stuff you never really put away. 

Maxwell from Apartment Therapy has this to say about the home landing strip. “The front door is your filter. It’s where the outside world gets sorted out, settled down, organized, and separated from the inside of your home.” In the video below, he offers a series of five essential things you use to make one, even if your home, like mine, doesn’t have a dedicated entryway or mud room.

My favorite tip: put the recycling bin right by the door. All the junk mail and catalogs just slide right in, before they even enter your house. It even helps finding the actual mail you need to deal with much easier. 

Click play to watch the video below: 

Seemingly easy tips, but really – they work. You just gotta stay committed. 

Top image from the designers at Port and Quarter