After-School Chaos

It's hard to be comfortable at home in chaos.  

I sometimes feel like I live in CHAOS with 5 people living in one house.  I get one area clean and organized and move on to find it totally messed up again within a couple of days.

It's hard to be comfortable at home in chaos.

So I've decided to use this 31 Day Writing Challenge to bring comfort to my home in different ways.  One of the ways to bring comfort . . . to tackle some of the problem areas in my home . . . some of the areas that tend to get cluttered and chaotic because there's no set plan of organization.

One of the areas is at the back door where the boys leave their backpacks, coats, and lunch boxes.  I also have issues with all the paperwork they bring home.  The notes, the forms, the invitations, and homework papers create a serious mess on my kitchen counters.  Not Comfort.  At All.

I browsed through Pinterest looking for ideas how to organize the boys' backpacks, papers, and lunchboxes in a cute and functional way.  Here's what I came up with:

Here's what I did:

I found a long board in the barn, and I got my daddy to cut it into three pieces.  I sanded the board and then painted the board.  I started out with a whitewash of the board.

But I didn't like it so I went back and painted it with a wash of watered-down black paint.  Much better.

Then I took 3 wooden frames from Dollar General and painted them white.  I put several coats of white paint on the frames and then sprayed it with clear coat polyurethane.

I wanted to be able to change the pictures out of the frames so I didn't want them stuck flat against the wood.  I took pieces of the the cork board and hot glued it to the back of the frame.

I glued it to the bottom and sides of the frame leaving the top open to slip the pictures in and out.

I then hot glued the picture frame to the top of the board.  I glued a piece of cork board below the picture frame for the boys' notes, etc.

Dave put the hooks on the bottom of the board for the backpacks.  Now if I can just get Dave to hang them for me!  Ha!

Each boy has his own area.  I'll put their pictures in the frames which will indicate where they are to put the back packs, the notes, etc.

The white box with black drawers sitting on the floor below the boards is something I got at the local Fred's.  I plan to let the boys put their papers, gloves, hats, and gadgets in their drawers.

Hopefully, this back door drop-off area will help the boys keep up with their school stuff and also keep it off my table and counters.

I'll post a picture after Dave hangs them up.  :)  He needs to get some special hardware to hang them so they can withstand the weight of the backpacks.

Having a place for everything and everything in its place . . . that sounds like comfort to me.  And starting with the boys' after-school chaos . . . well that's comfort that hits the spot!  

Comfort and home even after school with . . .

              the Ferrell boys and me!

I'm linking up to these great parties: