Behold, My Nemesis

 

I am the first to admit that I am not a scrupulous housekeeper. I don't scrub my baseboards with any regularity, and my kitchen floor definitely goes longer than it should in between dates with a mop. Dirt doesn't bother me that much, but clutter?

Clutter does.

This is unfortunate, given that I live in a house with five other people. I don't care how much of a minimalist you are, even minimal possessions times six adds up to a lot of stuff. And the one place where that stuff seems to just explode is the front entryway of our house.

Every child has a pair of shoes, a pair of sandals, and a pair of rubber boots*. Every child has a light jacket and a winter coat. Three of the children have backpacks. There are sunhats, winter hats, and winter gloves. Then there are A.'s giant boots and coats and gloves and on and on and on and on.

And that's why, when you walk into our house, this might be the first thing you see.

Ugh.

That's actually a little worse than it usually is, but there are ALWAYS someone's shoes in the middle of the floor, or the bin of gloves and hats has been overturned so they can all dress up as Meatish Monsters (I don't know, either), or whatever. Chaos and confusion reigns. 

It's actually a pretty big area, and there are some places in the corners where I could probably put up shelves or something to contain things a little better, I just . . . haven't. It's not like we have a Container Store nearby.

And so I just continue nagging children about shoes and constantly toss things back in bins. 

So what's the most irritating spot in your house? And do you have any suggestions for what I could do with mine? (Other than move out and live in a tiny house all by myself, which is sadly not an option.)

* At least. Some of them also have cowboy boots, or more than one pair of shoes, or moccasins, and then there are the winter boots . . . SO MUCH FOOTWEAR.