*I was provided with products from Spectrum Diversified. All opinions are my own.

Five years ago, at 17 I moved out for the first time. I’ve moved a few times since then, most recently in January. My current place is a duplex with a yard. It feels a lot more like my own than our previous apartments did. I think part of the reason why it feels more our own is because we have been able to customize little details to our liking. When we first moved in, everything seemed great for a few days but it didn’t take long for me to realize that I wanted to make a few changes. While we have a lot more room in terms of square footage than our previous apartment, we have no closets at all, and very few cupboards and drawers in the kitchen and bathroom. In our past apartments, we always had coat closets that I would use to store our vacuum, broom, mop, etc in addition to our jackets. Without a coat closet, we struggled to find a place to put these items.

I had an over-the-door coat rack from our previous place but the doors in our duplex fit very tight against the frame so it wouldn’t fit. I realized we needed a wall mounted coat rack so I started looking online. I saw that Spectrum Diversified had a really nice looking wooden coat rack that had four hooks, each with two prongs so we could fit at least 8 jackets on it. It seemed perfect for us so I started looking around at what else they had to offer. I saw several things that I added to my wish list but when I found the Mop & Broom Organizer (for just $6.99!) I knew I had to have it. I also selected the Ashley Over The Shelf Basket.

I was really impressed with the Stratford 4-Double Hook Wood Rack as soon as I touched it. The wood was a beautiful color and the hooks and the wood itself both felt incredibly sturdy. It came with two screws, and only took a few seconds to mount to my wall. It has two wooden pegs that fill the holes left by the screws to prevent the screws from being seen. Here in Michigan, spring weather can vary greatly from one day to the next. We’ve been using the coat rack to hold a winter coat and a spring coat for each of us, and we have enough hooks left over that I use it to hold my purse, and Ryan hangs his hats on it as well. We have left over space so sometimes I hang up a sweater or hoodie as well. I think it looks fine out in the open, but if you prefer to keep your coats hidden, it’s the perfect length to be hung behind a door to keep everything out of sight.

My kitchen is absolutely tiny – it is literally the smallest kitchen I’ve ever been in. My under-cabinet cupboards are aligned right next to my refrigerator, so when the cupboard doors are open they almost touch the side of the fridge. It puts me at a strange angle to try to access what is put into the cupboards, so I try to use them to store deep cleaning supplies, trash bags, extra sponges, and other items that I don’t need to access on a daily basis.  I had mostly succeeded at this, but I had no place to store my storage bags except in those awkward cupboards. I had a cupboard on the kitchen wall with the wall under it being completely unused so I knew that the Ashley Over The Shelf basket would be perfect for adding a little “shelf” space under the shelf. It’s the perfect size to put my food storage bags in so that they are readily accessible. The shelf is unusually short so the basket is actually longer than the shelf so it hangs over a little bit but it’s very sturdy despite this. I have a friend who uses a similar basket to store oddly shaped items such as taco seasoning packets that fall over in her pantry and take up too much space. It could be used for lots of things, really.

I was also really excited about the third item – the Mop & Broom Organizer. Honestly, the second I saw this I wished I had known about it years ago. In my old apartments I would store my mop and broom in the closet and almost every time that I opened the closet door, the mop and/or broom would hit me in the face. The mop & broom organizer has three hooks in the center that can hold your duster (if it is on a looped string) or a dust pan that has a hole in the handle. Then on either side there are two pieces of plastic with holes in the center that hold mops and brooms with standard handle sizes. Both my mop & broom have normal handles so they fit in the holder perfectly. I screwed the unit to the wall based on the height of my broom handle, and I have to shorten my mop handle to a smaller setting to get it to fit but it holds both great. The holders both can flap up and down to make it a bit easier to get your mop/broom in place. If you store your mop & broom in a closet, you could easily install the holder on the side of the closet to hold them in place in the closet.

These three products together have made our apartment just feel a little more our own. Have you recently added any storage or organizational products that have made your home more manageable? What were they?

Emily

Hi there! I am Emily Evert, the owner of Emily Reviews. I am 28 and live in a small town in Michigan with my boyfriend Ryan and our two pugs. I have a large family and I adore my nieces and nephews. I love reading memoirs, and learning about child development and psychology. I love watching The Game of Thrones, Teen Mom, Sister Wives and Veep. I like listening to Jason Isbell, John Prine, and other alt-country or Americana music. I created Emily Reviews as a creative outlet to share my life and the products that I love with others.

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