Entrance

I consider our entry to be huge, but compared to it's size, it does not actually have lot of convenient storage space. Our entry is a place we have to pass if we want to go from one room to another, so it means that the entry mostly has doors and openings to other rooms. And it means that there is not that much wall space there to have storage on. There is one closet, a shelf and a chest of drawers. This is plenty for us, but I do not know how a family of four could cope.

Entrance tambour left and right side, photo taken from front door

Here most homes have also an entrance tambour (shown above), I'm not totally sure about that term, but in homes where the front door goes straight out there is a small room in front of the door so that when you go out you first go in this small room and close the interior door after you, then you open the front door and warm air inside will not escape. I'm not sure if this is mandatory in all buildings in Finland but it's very common anyway. Even many stores have these.

I thought I could start the hybrid cure of the entrance by clearing all the stuff out in the open that just was misplaced and doing a basic cleaning there. I did not declutter a single closet or storage basket and I did not take out spring jackets or put the winter ones away. That I will probably do on thursday. But here are some before and after shots. (I cheated a little, the things by the shelf are going to charity, and I moved them away while taking the after shots, but they would not normally be there, so that's my excuse)

Before and after of the entrance after the tambour

On the peg board we generally have some coupons and postcards, things we like to be able to see often. 

Most stuff on the floor in the before is stuff that is going to charity

This shelf contains one of the most important organizing tool of our home, the paper slot. It is the white piece, with vertical dividers, that you see on the fourth shelf. It has slots for me, A, us both and for bills. It is where we put all the mail we receive that is not junk. In the landing strip (shown below) we can categorize everything and then we use the slots. From here we find all the papers actively in use and once in a while we go through the papers and throw them to either trash or put them to folders in the office. 

Before and after of the landing strip

This landing strip is a place that requires constant cleaning, maybe because we have to walk past it to get to any room we tend to leave there stuff that happens to be in our hands.