Memo Station Organization!

I am excited that my favorite organized blogger, Jen, over at IHeart Organizing is doing a link up party to share organization projects people have done to go along with her January Home Office Organization challenge!  This is my first time linking up to another blog and I'm fairly new to blogging but thought I'd share our family's Command Center.  Since we are limited with space I decided to put our set up in the kitchen next to the door leading to the garage.  We don't have a spare room for an office but we do have our small office nook in our living room but I wanted a space that we could keep important mail, documents to be filed, things to do list, address book, etc all in a central location.  Here is a look into our command station set-up.

This first picture shows our system that is working pretty good so far for us. 

 

Our console table pictured below (to the left wall of the command center) is where we hide a few things like receipts, coupons, boxtops etc.  It is also our doggy station for food & water and I just happened to love this posterboard sunburst mirror I saw on pinterest and saw it on Jen's blog and I just had to make my own! 

 



 

The bench holds all my cookbooks and my binder full of our favorite recipes  The far left blue bin is for any loose shoes that make their way in the kitchen.  When we walk in through the garage door often times my 2 yr old son will take his shoes off and leave them laying around in the kitchen so this is where i toss them.  The bench also holds my diaper bag, the middle box is where we store gloves, scarfs, my son's jackets, warm hats, etc. (anything we need before walking out the door). 

 

 

The top right section holds a dry erase board for our monthly calendar.  Anything the family has going on, we update here.  I added some cute washi tape around the edges to make it more appealing than the metal that surrounded it.  I put appointment slips there on the magnets if they are for a later month. 

 

On the little shelf I just found this cute coffee cup that matched my colors and stuck our dry erase markers there.  And just a small clock on the side.

 

 

On the other side of the shelf is this little compartment divider that we keep our address book in the first slot, followed by a pad of paper I usually use to write my grocery list on, and the last slot is where we keep our 2013 planner/agenda.  I found the little paperclip tabs at target in the dollar section and just used that to lable it.

 

To the left of our monthly calendar is our our file compartment that I got at IKEA.  I saw a reader space on Jen's blog that used this one and I thought it would be perfect for incoming mail (which we had a problem of always putting on our kitchen table and cluttering it up).  So I have a folder for my husband's mail and a folder for mine, then a folder for any papers that need "to be filed" in our file cabinet later, and a folder "to take action" for anything that needs to be taken care of right away or bills to be paid, etc.  The top section of the bin is for miscellaneous papers that don't fit in one of the catergories...like we put current magazines up there until they have been read. 

 

 

To the left of our file folders is a dry erase board I found at Office Depot and we use that our "Things To Do" area.  If anything needs to be done, it gets put up there so we don't forget.  To the bottom is just a small coat rack that we use for wallets, keys, purses and we have my son's favorite hat there so I snag it to bundle him up in this cold weather. 

 

After taking these pictures a week ago, I felt like this frame(below) on our console table looked a little bland.  I had a spare file folder that I used to update the matted frame and now it matches the other area.  The difference makes me smile :)

 

Here it is again on the table

 

 

Now to look inside the drawers.  The right drawer just has these 2 little baskets, one for loose coupons and one for our receipts for when we plug them into our monthly budget spreadsheet.  The coupons I file later in my coupon binder but these are for the ones I get randomly off products or in the paper, etc. 

 

The left drawer still needs a little loving but it has a box where I put all of our boxtops in.  We give them to my nephew to take to school.  It also has my small coupon file that I take with me to the grocery store and just has some washi tape and extra paper clip lables in there. 

 

Lastly, on the table itself is this little vase with flowers I got from IKEA.  Even though the flowers are fake they still put me in a better mood to have them there. 

 

 

Speaking of my small office area, here it is in the living room corner.  It works but it makes things so much nicer and neater to have the command station so I dont have piles of papers and things all over the desk. 

 

 

Thanks for looking and I am excited to browse all the projects over at IHeart Organizing! 

 

<3 Kristen