Hooks: An Easy Way to Organize

I don't know if you read other blogs, but I read quite a few. I love blogs but so often it seems like the writer really has it together. #1 example = Posie Gets Cozy! Her house is beautiful, her food is beautiful, her writing is beautiful! Now I'm sure that every single last one of them would tell you that in fact her life is NOT as perfect as it may seem. But one well-staged photograph can certainly be intimidating, I think!

Well, I hope this post doesn't make you feel that way. I certainly do not have it all together. I struggle with a lot of things around my home (like, um, actually cleaning). But one trick I use all the time is hooks. I'm sure I picked it up from a magazine. They're really easy and fast (if you use the 3M Command hooks) and help contain a lot of things that wouldn't otherwise have a home.

So come on a tour of all the hooks I use! I was surprised at how many hooks I actually have in my house as I walked around my home!

So let's start with some of the first hooks I ever used: the coat rack by my front door:

My husband (then fiance) got these for me when I lived in an apartment. There was no coat closet anywhere near the door, so I loved having hooks to hang coats on right by the front door! We later used it when we got married and I moved into his townhouse. There was no closet by his front door either, so we hung our coats there. In our current house, the coat closet is at the top of the stairs, to the right of the railing in the picture. I love having a convenient place for coats, both for us and for guests.

Our tiny entry way leads me to the next set of hooks:

 

 I have two kids, which in the winter means two sets of boots and snowpants, as well as scarves. Our little entryway was pretty crowded. So this year I had the brilliant idea to make a mini-mud room at the bottom of the stairs. It's hard to see, but there are 3 hooks on the wall there as well as a tray for wet winter boots. All our boots go there and all my kids' snow stuff (it's not there now because they're at their grandma's - lucky me!).

 Here's the inside of our coat closet at the top of the stairs. I've got hooks on the inside of the door, as you can see. I hang my winter coat on one because I'm too lazy to put it on a hanger! (A trick I learned from Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project book - figure out an easy solution to messes!) Maybe I'll have to do another post on tote bags - I love them as well. The navy tote bag hanging on a hook on the right is our "church bag" - it holds our Bibles as well as anything I need to give one of our friends from church.
 
Let's go to the living room! Our CD player/iPod dock has an antenna that goes with it. I didn't know what to do with it, so I put a hook on the side of the bookcase where the CD player sits and hung the antenna on it. Now it's out of sight:

  In my daughter's room I love this row of hooks for all her costumes:

Our linen closet has a hook to hold my Norwex mop accessories:

My friend Carla gave me this great idea: use a hook to hold my hair dryer! Then it's not taking up valuable counter or drawer space.

Although our bathroom has two hooks already on the wall, I put two more on the back of the door to accommodate all our towels:

Our kitchen has a hook that suctions onto the microwave to hold potholders. What do other people do with their pot holders? Put them in a drawer? I guess we have too many kitchen utensils taking up all our drawer space!

Then there's a row of hooks in the kitchen (near the top of the stairs) for painting smocks, the diaper bag, my purse, my daughter's backpack, etc.:

We used to have a dish sitting on the desk in the kitchen to hold keys, but I was tired of all the clutter on the counter so I put a hook on the side of this cabinet for my keys:

 There are lots of fun jewelry ideas on Pinterest, but until I take time to create something, for now my jewelry hangs on Command hooks on the wall in my bedroom:

And last of all, I have a hook in our downstairs bathroom to hold our little potty training seat (it has handles on the side which allow it to hang from the hook) (not pictured because it's at Grandma's):

That's 15 Command hooks! And I have one on my front door for my wreath as well!

I hope at least one of these ideas is helpful to you! And if you use hooks in other useful ways, please let me know in the comments!