Is your entryway a mess? When you enter your home, are there piles of things lined near the door? This area is called the entryway landing zone or drop zone. In this area, you place items that will be going out of the home with you and your family. It is an area that can easily be transformed from a messy place to a well-organized area for a great morning start. Ready to get your entryway landing zone organized? Follow along and see what you should keep in an organized entryway.
Now, it is time to decide on your entryway. Let’s determine where this landing spot should be in your home.
Where should I place my organized entryway landing zone in my home?
Some people may have mudrooms. These rooms are the perfect spot for a landing zone to help keep their family’s things organized when they enter the home. This room is usually near the garage door and may house a washer and dryer as well.
People with small homes may have a living room or foyer that would be their landing spot for items when entering their home. It can be a corner of the shared room that is close to the front door.
Others can have it as part of their kitchen or family room or just a hallway in their home, depending on how their home is laid out.
If it is still not clear where your landing zone would be, ask yourself these questions when determining your entryway landing spot for your things.
Questions to ask yourself to determine your perfect entryway landing zone
Where do you enter your house most often? Is it through the garage? Through the front door? Or, in the back of the house?
What stuff do you bring in with you every single day? This could be anything from your purse, coat, and shoes to specific items like a cellphone charger cable or grocery bags.
When you enter, do your things have homes? Does your purse or bag have a specific spot to land when you enter? How about your shoes? Do you take off your shoes when entering the home? If so, where do they end up?
Where do coats end up when entering your home? Do they get hung? Or, are they thrown over a chair near the door?
Do you have a place to add the incoming mail? Where does the mail go when you enter the home? Is it a convenient place?
How about the kids' stuff or dog’s stuff? Do you have a hook or shelf to place those items in your entryway?
Answering these questions will help with determining which area is the best for you. Now that you have decided where your drop zone will be let’s show you how to organize the area.
Wherever you have your entryway drop zone, it will be unique and perfect just for you and your family.
Easy Tips to Make Your Family's Organized Entryway Landing Zone
Now it is time to create an organized entryway landing zone. Below are tips to help you make it effective for you and your family.
Start with a clean slate
First, you must clear the entryway from all the debris and mess. Create a clean slate to help you stay focused on the task at hand. The entryway drop zone should be as close as possible to the door you used the most. It needs to be a place for your entire family to use each day. So, getting their feedback is super important.
Keep the landing drop zone near the most used door.
Keep in mind that this drop zone area needs to be close to the door that your family enters the most. If you enter from the garage door, your landing drop zone should be near the garage door. If you enter your home from the front door, your landing drop zone should be in the foyer or living room near the front door.
Declutter the items before organizing them for this area.
Gather the items that will be stored in the entryway drop zone area and declutter them before going out and buying any organizing products. Sometimes we think we will use something frequently and it turns out we haven't used them for years.
These items are needed to organize this landing drop zone area.
Be sure to have the following items to maximize your landing drop zone. The items below work well to help keep everything organized so it looks attractive and functional.
- Pretty containers to keep stuff under control - Visit our post: 12 ESSENTIAL CONTAINER TYPES FOR YOUR NEXT ORGANIZING PROJECTS for ideas
- Drawers or baskets for storing gloves
- Storage bench to sit on so you can put on shoes
- Hooks or Pegs for current season coats and jackets
- Place to store misc. items like keys, wallets, mail, etc…
- Good lighting to see where things go
- Table or cubby system to hold kids school bags and cellphones chargers
- Place to hang heavier coats and hats
- An area to store shoes.
Using all these items on this list will make your well-organized entryway super pretty and functional.
Label, Label, Label
Be sure to label the bins and drawers, so everyone knows where the items go.
There are varieties of well-organized units you can use in the entryway landing zone. Below are some I found on Amazon(affiliate). Feel free to check them out.
Well, I hope this helps you get your entranced more organized, and it helps you and your family keep on top of the things that go in and out of the home. What is your favorite organizing product in your entryway? Please leave a comment below.
Feel free to visit these additional posts for other publications for more tips on entryway organization:
14 Ideas for Creating a More Organized Entryway
Melanie Summers
We have a small entryway as well and keep it pretty minimal using a lot of the tips you shared! If we don't keep that space clear of clutter it becomes pretty difficult to function so we keep a spot for outdoor shoes, coats, and KEYS/accessories - all wall hanging storage to keep these items off the limited floor space. GREAT post, Sabrina!
Sabrina Quairoli
Thanks for stopping by and commenting, Melanie!
Janet Schiesl
We have a very small entry so we do a combination of what you suggest. We enter the house from two doors. In the entry, there is a small wall-hung coat rack. My son used that. In the laundry, there are more hooks on the wall for my & my husband's coats. The kids used to hand backpacks and lunch boxes there too. There is really no place to set anything down until you get into the kitchen, so we have to be diligent not to clutter the kitchen counters.
Sabrina Quairoli
Thanks for sharing your unique situation, Janet. As long as everyone understands where things go when entering the home, the landing zone can be anywhere and set up any way that works for the family.
Lucy Kelly
A defined entryway makes all the difference and you have terrific ideas here, Sabrina. I noticed when moving my daughter into her college apartment this year that the roomies had already turned the hooks on the wall in their entryway into a mask rack, which I thought was so smart. They can grab a clean mask when they head out to class and there'll be no rummaging around their bags to fish out used masks.
Sabrina Quairoli
Great idea! Having COVID-related stuff in the landing zone is super important during this time. Thanks for sharing their idea. =)
Julie Bestry
Now that's a robust post! You hit all of the essentials and more.
I have a special challenge. I have only one entrance to my home, but once I get through the door, I'm basically in a space no larger than a phone booth, with a closet to my left and stairs ahead of me. It's so tight that I have to wiggle around if want to take out a full trash bag or a suitcase -- I have to balance it behind me on the stairs so I can open the front door first, because there's no room in the entrance way for any more than one person!
There's no room for a table or even hooks protruding from the wall, or the door wouldn't open completely! But because the closet is against an outside wall, coats get too cold to store there in winter, so for years I had a coat rack at the top of the stairs, which felt cluttery and excessive, so I got rid of it and during cold weather, my coat has its own chair. (The rest of my landing strip, thus, is in the interior of the house; purse, keys, phone-in-the-charger, work bag, etc., all have places to live. But ah, those coats.)
Sabrina Quairoli
That's frustrating. With narrow entryways, we have to do more creative organizing to figure them out. It is Ok to have your landing zone farther into the house as long as most of the items are in one place and everyone knows what is there. Thanks for sharing your situation.
Katherine Macey
This post reminded me that I haven't found the perfect spot to put my bag in when I enter my home. Thank you!
Sabrina Quairoli
I'm glad that it helped to remind you of a task. It's my purpose for the blog. =)
Sheri Steed
This is a very thorough outline of what to include in a landing zone and where. Landing zones are such an essential organizational tool because the things we bring with us when we enter our home and take with us when we leave are prime candidates for clutter without a proper home. Also, one doesn't want the most frequently used entry to be cluttered since that is likely the first view guests will have of your home.
Seana Turner
One challenge a family I know had was that half the time they entered the home via the back, where the cars parked. The other half of the time, the kids went out the front to where the bus for school picks them up. This complicated things. My preference is to always "store" things in one space, even if you periodically go out another door. Or, simply go out and around the house to the bus if the better storage space is in the back. I love the list!
Sabrina Quairoli
You make a good point; people may need to change their behaviors to make the entryway zone effective if they have dual entries. Creating habits before school starts would help with this, so when the school year begins, they will have already established the new habit. Thanks for stopping by and sharing, Seana.
Ronni Eisenberg
This is such a necessary post. It sets the tone for what happens once we enter the home. ( And saves time when exiting.) I really like what you said about creating an area near the door you enter and leave from. I agree that’s key. I tell clients that no space is too small. We just need to be creative.
I love the video!!
Sabrina Quairoli
That is so true that no place is too small. I recently found a small 10-inch deep table for the entryway, so my daughter and her roommate had a place for their things when they entered their tiny city rental property. We went there yesterday, and they are using it! It is working for their area.
Linda Samuels
Those are excellent questions you posed for figuring out a good landing zone location. Your ideas for what to include are also terrific.
When we first moved into our house, the front door had actually been set up like a back door. You walked in and saw the washer/dryer, a tiny closet, a large freezer, and the water heater. My husband rearranged and removed all of those things within a short while and created a laundry room in another area. Then I converted the entryway to accommodate all the drop zone items. Over the years, it changed as our family grew. At one point, I had bins to collect the kids' school and artwork and low hooks for their coats and backpacks.
Diane N Quintana
Love these tips, Sabrina! I'm working with a family right now to create a good landing zone for the things they bring into the home. I will share this check list with them.
Sabrina Quairoli
Thank you, Diane! That's great. They will see a huge difference when they enter the home every single day. Happy organizing!
Janet Barclay
I live in an apartment with a very small entryway. The upside of that is it has to stay neat or we can't get in and out! Right at the edge of the living room is a mat where we keep our shoes or boots (one pair each, the rest have to go in the closet) and a table with a basket for keys and a storage section where we keep the dog's leash.
Sabrina Quairoli
That's great! A table near the entryway always works well for small and larger entryways. Thanks for sharing.