Command Central

A couple years ago I was feeling overwhelmed by paper clutter in our kitchen.  I was also feeling like the kids needed a place to drop their shoes and backpacks because I was tired of them being all over the downstairs all the time.  Like I told you before, this house is tight with no wasted space.  Most homes in Las Vegas do not have mud rooms.  My laundry room is upstairs. 

Anyway, I had read some different ideas about creating a "Command Central" sort of deal.  I decided that was what I needed.  Here is what I came up with:



In this picture you see a bench that I already had.  I had originally ordered it to go at one end of my custom 4' wide table, but when it came the back was too tall and it just didn't work.  So, it got placed on this wall in my kitchen and I LOVE it there.  It gives people a place to sit and chat with me while I am cooking.  I actually lay down on it quite often to talk to my husband or when I am waiting for the baby to finish eating or something.

Underneath it there are 3 bins.  When I got them, I only had 4 kids and the oldest's room is downstairs so I figured he didn't need a bin anyway.  Now, I have 2 kids in elementary and 2 who are at home.  The two youngest share a bin and the other two have their own.  They are SUPPOSED to put their shoes and backpacks and lunchboxes in their bin.  But for some STRANGE reason their crap is still constantly all over the downstairs.  At least the bins give me a place to throw their stuff when I find it all over the place and then I can make them carry the whole thing upstairs and unload it.

Above the bench is a fabric covered magnet board.  I had my husband go to a sheet metal place and have them cut this to the size I needed.  They sell sheet metal in a couple differenct sizes at Home Depot.  I think they may have one that is 3'x4' which is close to the size this is.  When I made this I wrapped the fabric around to the back and hot glued it in place.  If I were to do it again I would first secure it to the front with spray mount.  We then figured out where the studs were in the wall and screwed the thing into them.



I made an altered clipboard for the 3 oldest kids at the time.  Now the 3 middle kids use them.  You can find tutorials for these all over the web.  You basically just modge podge paper onto a clipboard and add some cute embellishments.

I got a desk calendar and hung it up with neodymium magnet hooks I buy from http://www.emovendo.net/ .  I ordered some of their other super strong magnets and bought these little watchmakers' tins from some place online that I can't remember (sorry!).  I used E6000 to glue the magnets to the backs of the tins.  Then I found some cute papers and cut out circles to place inside the tins. 

I use the board to post things I want all my family to see.  Not so much kids artwork and papers because we have a huge magnet board upstairs for that.  But if they get an award I will post it here.  I also have my dry erase menu frame on this board. 

This has been a functional solution to some of my paper problems.  I am ready for a new fabric on it.  Wonder if I can talk my husband into helping me re-do it?  I guess I could do it all by myself if I HAVE to.

Tomorrow I will show you the organizer I made to deal with all the paper clutter!