Organize Your Home – And Life – With The Open Spaces Entryway Rack

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Have you ever walked into someone’s home and thought, “This place is too clean?” Not the overly-hygienic type of clean, but the this-place-lacks-character sort of clean. Or, on the flip side, entered a personality-filled room with no place to set your drink down because the coffee table is littered with literary magazines, board games, and plants? The “stuff” dilemma is a tricky one.

Ironically, one of the best ways to deal with too much stuff is to sometimes get more stuff. While Marie Kondo-ing that shit is certainly an option, organized maximalism over boring minimalist home decor is a choice I’d make any day. That’s why I’m a fan of Open Spaces. 

You’ve probably discovered Open Spaces while aimlessly scrolling through Instagram. It’s a DTC storage brand that uses social media to advertise its colorful home products well. As someone who is always in need of a better way to organize my things, I tested out the Entryway Rack ($184), which is the brand’s most popular item. While I can’t say it’s completely changed my life, I can say it has changed my home. 

A Tidy Home Is A Happy Home

I’ve come to accept the fact that I genuinely love tidying up. Here’s a good example: In the kitchen, my fiancée is a hurricane. Things fly everywhere, dishes pile up, and every cabinet ends up ajar. For the record, she’s an excellent cook – but in my perfect world, everything is prepped and set before I even get started. 

I take that mise en place approach to the rest of the home, too. Everything must have its place, mostly because it makes me feel comfortable at home. Particularly in the past few years, there’s been a consensus that our homes have a significant impact on how we feel. “We’ve been seeing that our physical spaces seem very much connected to our emotional and mental spaces,” shares Suze Dowling, Open Spaces’ Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer. “When our space is cluttered, so are we.”

Dowling and her team launched Open Spaces in January of 2020 as a way to embrace living at home comfortably. “It was really founded based on our own needs and challenges,” Dowling explains. 

Fast forward a few months and suddenly our homes weren’t just where we relaxed and recovered, but where we spent the majority of our lives. 

“When COVID first hit, people probably felt like they had to solve every problem in their house,” shares Dowling. “But that's not necessarily the most sustainable solution. It's really little habits or practices over time that can be really more sustainable and flexible and less overwhelming and major.”

How to Organize Your Home

“Start small and create new habits,” suggests Dowling.

Rather than jumping headfirst into your home office, bedroom, or living spaces, consider how you actually want to keep your home organized. Think about how you use the furniture in your rooms and where you end up spending most of your time.

In fact, Open Spaces has a 10 step guide of hacks for simply and effectively organizing your home without tossing out everything or starting from scratch. Some useful decluttering tips include embracing a little imperfection and organizing in small windows of time.ﾠ

“It sounds really simple, but honestly, just take a few minutes at the end of each day to make sure that everything is back in its place,” says Dowling. “It makes such a big difference in helping to control the chaos.”

Styling the Open Spaces Entryway Rack

Part of what initially drew me to Open Spaces was the brand’s playful and vibrant use of color. I opted for the dark green Open Spaces Entryway Rack ($184), but the brand’s palette includes lavender, sky blue, and more. When the box arrived, I was impressed by the ease of assembly (an allen wrench is the only tool required). Thanks to the grip on top of the rack, it’s easy to move around and place wherever as you integrate it into your space, and the adjustable three-tier rack offers beautiful, easy access open shelving to store just about anything you please.

While the primary function at face value appears to be shoe storage, I was pleasantly surprised by how well it worked in just about every room. Ultimately, my fiancée and I chose to use it as a shoe organizer by our backyard door, but we enjoyed testing out the Entryway Rack by our TV, in the bathroom, and even in the kitchen, too:

Living Room

We already have a small coffee table, but I liked using the Entryway Rack as an extra storage space and book shelf for magazines and boardgames. The low profile means it fits under windows, offering a plant or two some sunlight. 

Bathroom

If you have some extra space in the bathroom, the Entryway Rack is a great storage solution. Keep extra TP and towels stocked along with some bathroom reading material. I also used some Open Spaces storage bins ($54) for bath bombs/bubbles and extra soap.

Back Door

Our Entryway Shoe Rack houses a few pairs of shoes, bike helmets, and some gardening tools in its new home. Before we had everything tossed in a few milk crates, but the Entryway Rack keeps things tidier, more organized, and definitely out of the way.

5 More Reasons to Love Open Spaces:

1. In addition to the versatile Entryway Rack, Open Spaces makes plenty of simple storage solutions like wire baskets, small, large, and medium storage baskets, nesting trays, and more.  
2. Open Spaces has a dedicated contact line if you have any questions about organizing your home and they’ve provided specific tips for different rooms!
3. If you don’t like your new Entryway Rack or Storage Gems, return them for a full refund, no questions asked.
4. Open Spaces has committed to using environmentally friendly materials in its products like no single-use plastics in shipping materials and compressed felt made from recycled plastic bottle fibers.
5. Open Spaces is always looking to add to or improve its product line and regularly solicits feedback from customers and followers. You can follow the brand on Instagram to keep an eye out for any new product launches.

Ready to test the Entryway Rack (and its divider baskets, trays, and storage solutions) in your own space? Shop the brand’s extensive home solutions and clean up your home at getopenspaces.com.