Slow Home 101: Our Entryway

Yesterday we started to look at the specifics of a Slow Home. In particular, the entryway or landing strip.I thought I could use our entryway as an example - partly to motivate myself to improve our situation, and partly to illustrate to you why a slow home is so awesome and why you would benefit from living in one.

Our Entryway

As you walk in our front door, you enter a small hallway. This dark timber dressing table is on the left and an opening into our family room/TV room is on the right.We use the vintage dresser as a hall stand. It has a mirror and three drawers. We picked it up at a garage sale for $40 thinking we might paint it, but the drama of the dark stain has grown on us and I think it will be staying this way for the time being.

On top of the unit there is a vase of wool-wrapped sticks, a catch-all bowl and a couple of meaningful keepsakes. The bowl is where we keep our keys, Isla's hair bands and clips, loose change and other odds and ends that we can't be bothered putting away. It adds up really quickly.

Drawer #1 is where we keep the kids' health books, as well as an embarassing assortment of crap.

Drawer #2 is empty.

Drawer #3 is my wrapping drawer. It holds wrapping paper, ribbons, sticky tape, gift bags (I keep any decent ones we are gifted and re-use them - 'cause I'm tight like that) and birthday cards. It is incredibly handy and I won't be changing it any time soon.

Behind the front door we have a wall-mounted coat rack from ebay. It's an Eames Hang-it-All but (ahem) it's not authentic. Regardless, it is somewhere to hang:

• the nappy bag
• Sparky's work bag
• Isla's raincoat
• a scarf or two
• the one umbrella we own

This set-up works OK, but I still find I end up with unopened mail cluttering up the kitchen bench (and occasionally unpaid bills), shoes floating around the front door, three iPhones stacked up and an assortment of toys, dummies, junk mail, hairbrushes and spare change on the dresser by the time Friday rolls around. 

What Will I Change?

Soon we'll be putting up a shelf desk in the back room, which will house the laptop, home phone, mobile phone charger and mail sorting, so that will undoubtedly help in clearing the paper clutter and organising essentials like bill paying, letter answering etc.Aside from completely refurnishing the front hallway with a lowline timber bench and storage unit (which isn't in the budget any time soon) these are the changes I'll make to the front hallway:

• decluttering drawer #1 and tossing the crap that collects there
• clearing off the surface of the dresser and making sure everything that remains has a place
• using drawer #1 to hold:
  • keys
  • wallets
  • spare change
  • mobiles phones
• using drawer #2 as an exit drawer (anything that needs to leave the house with me will be put in there)
• tidying drawer #3
  • replenishing anything that has run out
  • repurposing, recycling or tossing any wrapping paper or bags that I'll never use

It sounds like a lot of work, but considering the kids are both sick and sleeping (hooray! they're actually sleeping! at the same time!) I think I'll go and tackle this particular beast right now, and let you know how I go.In the meantime, here are some inspirational entryways to get your creative juices going: