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If you’re a busy family like we are, these kitchen family command center ideas will help you nail the to-do lists and make sure your family members are getting all of their important things done and making it to their activities and sports practices on time!
I love a good kitchen command center to keep the family calendar, school papers, shopping lists, and all of our other family’s needs in one place.
Creating your own command center is a great idea, especially if you have a new kindergartner starting school, or need to manage multiple kid’s sports schedules. A home command center is a great way to get the entire family organized, and make sure everyone is on the same page.
There are so many different ways to customize your own kitchen family command center! In fact, it doesn’t even need to go in your kitchen. Even a small space in a living room corner can be the perfect place to create a wall system to happily display important information and serve as a drop zone for papers and projects!
Today I’ll share how we set up our very simple and affordable command center system, then I’ll share some of my favorite command centers that I’ve found around the web. And of course some tips on how to create your own!
How to Set Up a Kitchen Family Command Center
The most important thing when you are creating your kitchen family command center is to decide what is going to work best for your family!
- Step 1– Choose a central place where everyone in the family will see your command center on a daily basis. This is why the kitchen works well, but it can be any place where there’s enough real estate to hang a wall organizer or other small things used for organizing. Don’t worry if you don’t have an entire wall to dedicate to this project!
- Step 2– Evaluate your family needs. If your kids are not in school yet, you probably don’t need to worry as much about paper clutter folders or other school related organization tools. If you eat at home every night, a meal planning calendar would benefit you most! Decide what your family will need from your DIY command center before purchasing a bunch of organizing items that will end up not getting used.
- Step 3– Reuse items around the house before shopping. If you’re like me, you probably already have a lot of post it notes, organizing bins, and bulletin boards around the house that you’ve purchased in the past. Make sure you try to use what you already have before spending a fortune on new gear.
- Step 4– Check out my list below for ideas on what to include in your kitchen family command center, and check out my favorite command centers at the bottom of this post for inspiration.
What to Include in a Kitchen Family Command Center
Now that you’ve found the best place for your command center, here is some inspiration for what to include to get the most out of your new organized space.
- File Folders– Create a designated folder for each family member to store their important papers such as art work, home work, paper clutter and more.
- Magnetic board or magnetic chalkboard– Keep a magnetic board with cute magnets to display your child’s most prized art work or test scores. You can also create your own magnetic chalkboard wall using chalkboard paint on a blank wall or small area.
- Grocery Lists– A magnetic tear off grocery list like this one is a great way to keep track of groceries that you run out of as the week goes by so you don’t forget anything when you do your weekly shopping trip.
- Cork board or bulletin board– Similar to a magnetic board, a cork board is a great place to manage paper clutter, business cards, or other small pieces of paper clutter that you don’t want to lose or get rid of just yet.
- Wire baskets– Adding a few simple wire baskets like these can help manage paper clutter or small miscellaneous items in a fun and cute way.
- Dry erase board and markers– I love using a dry erase board with these ultra fine tip dry erase markers to keep track of our family’s monthly calendar.
- Chore Charts– These cute printable chore charts are a great way to include the whole family in all of the housekeeping duties! Your kids will have so much pride as they check off their daily to do list.
- Meal Plan– The kitchen family command center is a great place to display the weekly or monthly meal plan and prevent the daily “Mom, what’s for dinner” routine from happening!
- Charging station– A command center is the perfect place to use as a drop zone for all of your family smart devices. Set up an organization station in an entry way or other central place to include chargers for phones, tablets, smart watches, and other devices. You can even include a smart assistant like an Alexa or Google home device to keep your family organized if you’re a tech loving person.
- Sticky notes– Fun and brightly colored sticky notes are great to use as grocery lists or to create little reminders for your self and your family.
- Storage– Store all those junk drawer items like lunch boxes, takeout menus, car keys, and miscellaneous office supplies that never seem to have a spot! A great option for these little things are cute bins and useful tools like key hooks or an incoming mail slot.
Our Simple Kitchen Family Command Center
I’m always trying out new organization techniques in our home. With the addition of our newborn this summer, we now have a busy family of six, so things won’t be slowing down anytime soon.
I use a simple dry erase calendar that’s magnetic and add it to the front of our laundry room fridge. This monthly calendar is where I keep track of all of our practices, school events, birthday parties, and anything else busy families do!
In order to keep track of which activity belongs to which kids, I use a color coding system and assign each child one of these ultra fine tip dry erase markers. That way I can look at the calendar and immediately know who has something going on that day! I also have a color that means all the kids need to be there.
To keep the dry erase markers from going missing, I use this magnetic caddy as a designated spot for pens, markers, and stickers that the kids use for their chore charts.
We also keep the kid’s chore charts on the lower area of the fridge. This is what is working for now, but I’m sure I will change it up and come up with another brilliant idea before it’s all said and done!
I also keep this large magnetic dry erase board on the front of our main fridge in the kitchen (because I couldn’t fit everything on the laundry room fridge). This is where I list important reminders, grocery list items we don’t want to forget, and our weekly menu plan.
A kitchen family command center is such a great solution for your family organization challenges! Here are a few ideas for what you can include in your family command center.
Favorite Family Command Center Ideas
The following are some of my top picks for kitchen command center ideas that will fit the needs of your family depending on the amount of space and organization needs.
Photo Credit:
www.wherethesmileshavebeen.com
Hallway Family Command Center for Out-of-the-Way Organization
This massive Hallway Command Center Idea deserves ALL the applause! If you have a large space or hallway, this is the perfect solution to all of your command center dreams.
This DIY Command Center Idea idea is perfect for those of you with a smaller space. You can make a family command center on any budget, and any size space!
Here is a perfect space saving DIY Family Command Center Idea for a kitchen corner, or small desk area.
I love a free printable. This Family Command Center, not only tells you how to put together an organized command center that works for you, but provides the free printables to get the job done fast.
If you're crafty, and love to reduce and reuse, this Upcycled DIY Family Command Center idea might be perfect for you!
I'm also loving this DIY Magnetic Board, and DIY Framed Magnetic Board to add to your family command center.
Here is a Giant Dry Erase board command center idea, with a built in clock so you're never late! (Yeah, right)
This bright and simple DIY Family Command Center idea, is perfect for thin vertical spaces.
I'm dreaming about the space to accommodate this large DIY family command center idea.
You're going to love this adorable family command center, using affordable IKEA items!
More budget organizing:
- DIY Organization Ideas on a Budget
- How to Declutter and Organize Your Finances
- Back to School Organization Ideas
- How to Organize a Small Home on a Budget
- Affordable Storage Ideas
We have a few places in our home that keep us organized, but nothing like these gorgeous and functional kitchen family command center ideas! I am totally inspired now to add some new things to our command center. Let me know if you try any of these ideas.
hi! I'm shannon
I’m a wife, mom of three, doctor, and blogger! In 2018, I decided to turn my mom blog, into a personal finance blog so others could follow along on our journey to pay off over HALF a MILLION dollars in student loan and practice start up debt. I hope you enjoy following along, and maybe even find some inspiration along the way.
