[lorend]

Off-Campus Housing Series Two: Your New Place (And What to Bring)
Part Four: The Front Closet

DANIELLE LORENZ, MACINSIDERS

Okay, I realize bringing things to outfit a closet probably sounds pretty weird. Not only do I not know

where else you would put these items, I have a feeling many of you won’t keep said items in your front closet. You may not even have a front closet, for all I know. But I'm basing everything on the layout of my current house (which I will be leaving in a few weeks *sniff*), so not all of this may apply to you.

Anywhoo, in my house, all of the common cleaning supplies are kept in this...place. If you have carpet, you will need a vacuum cleaner. If you’re lucky enough to not have any carpet (I personally can’t stand it), then you can make do with a dust pan and broom (dollar store). Although it is not necessary, I think having a Swiffer is a good idea; it really does pick up what a broom leaves behind. And the Swiffer Wet has disinfecting properties. I sound like a total clean freak with all of my talk of disinfecting in previous articles...but you’d be surprised how quickly things get dirty in a matter of a week (and it helps keep the mousies away...). So now you can clean the common areas of your house.

However, some other items are usually stored in this space: shoes. I don’t think any one person in a house will only have one pair of shoes. So what do you do with the extras? Some you keep in your respective rooms (like dress shoes), but the others (the ones you wear more often) can go on a shoe rack. That leaves space for your cleaning supplies (as mentioned in the previous paragraph), as well as your shoes.

Matched up with shoes is the idea of mats. In the winter months, and during rainy times you will bring in a lot of muck and wetness and whatnot into your house. You should have some sort of rubber mat to put your wet shoes. Guess where you can buy these? The dollar store; but if you want you could go to Canadian Tire, Home Depot or Rona and buy the same thing for at least five times more. It’s up to you.

If you all have a lot of winter clothing items (gloves, mitts, hats, scarves etc) you may want to put some sort of baskets in the higher regions of the front closet to store them. You can either pick up some baskets from the dollar store, or use shoe boxes; whatever suits your fancy. That way you can find them when you need them, and you don’t have to keep them in your room. You can also store things such as Frisbees, soccer balls, footballs et cetera up there as well.

And there you have your front closet. And now you know what I meant (w00t!).

[Chad]

wow you just think of everything! I totally would have missed most of these closet goodies

[lorend]

It alll comes with experience. Really.