Here is ours, open. It is basically a drop-leaf secretary with a shelved cabinet above and below. All three have electrical outlets in the left sidewall. The top cab has a phone jack. There are divot holes drilled to enable us to run cords up and down from one to the other, and in the secretary's shelf as well, which is where we lay our mobile phones to charge. The holes are fitted with those metal pop-out grommets.

In the bottom we have our shredder and our briefcase storage on a shelf above it. There are car key hooks in the right side of the secretary. The magnetic chalk boards with bins, top left and right, came from Target. The desk pad is a curious and remarkably functional stick-on thing from Amazon, and the cork backboard I installed myself with mixed results. We drew it up ourselves and our KD finished it and had it custom made by Holiday. It has been a life-saver. That said, if we did it over again, I would make the secretary 15" tall instead of 18". I am short so it is a bit of a stretch to reach into the back and pin something on the corkboard.

Hope that helps.

Here it is, shut, as you enter the kitchen from the garage. It is a good spot to dump keys and brief cases and mail as you come in the house. It forms one side of our CD fridge. The other side of the fridge matches it, kinda, but is just a tall, shelved pantry storage cabinet.

Ours has the look of an appliance garage--it is at counter height, with a door that lifts straight up.

Here it is closed:

And open:

Phone jack and outlet (we tend to do most of our charging elsewhere, so we only have one). Small bin for DH's wallet/keys/sunglasses/pocket contents, rest of the space for other frequently accessed items like change jar, tissues, address book, etc. All this stuff used to "live" in this same spot on the counter, but out in the open. It resisted all my previous attempts to either move it to a new spot, or corral it into nicer looking bins/cubbies/etc.

I LOVE that I can close it away behind the door. Bonus with this arrangement is that because of the way the door swings out and up, you can't open the cabinet door if you've placed something on the counter in front of it--keeps us from allowing things to pile up there!

Those are both super-cool. I don't have any pictures to share, but I think any organizer should include a place for MAIL. It's the #1 clutter-item on my kitchen counter and table. After that, it should include:

- keys
- sunglasses
- receipts
- coupons
- running list of groceries to be purchased later
- tape, staples, paper clips, ink pens
- trash
- recharging station

And it's essential that the location be convenient to the main family entrance.

As we are still in the planning stages of our kitchen, this is an incredibly helpful thing to remember - we need something to replace the bowl that will hopefully be banished but currently contains all our chargers and receipts!

I have a row of small cubby holes under the micro shelf for mail and school papers, and below the counter I have two file cabinets. On the counter sits the charging station. The cubbies are so much more useful than I thought, I highly recommend them.

were you thinking of icfgreen's command center? It's the one I always drool over;)

Here is a link that might be useful:

I found a lot of good ones on Houzz.com. Here's a search for "kitchen drop zone" which seems to be one of the catch phrases for it.

Here is a link that might be useful: Houzz -- drop zones

We are going to try something like this. Found on Houzz.

Ours our still under construction but this is right off the garage......they still need to paint it and install hooks which will be used for keys, dog leash, handbags, etc. I hate to post pic of it unfinished but here you go!

Mine is far less glamorous than these, but just to give you an idea that you don't have to use an entire cabinet for it...
We have the phone/answering machine, a holder for bills, a notepad for lists/messages/etc. I used sticky hooks for keys and to hang the calendar. I'm going to add a few more to the door to put up party invites or notes about school that I'll need to reference easily. Otherwise, we use the large drawer (shown open) for kid/school stuff that I need but don't need to contantly access.

And we still have room for mugs/tea/etc (b/c the Keurig is on the counter next to this cab! :) ).

Oh these are great! I got side tracked and just got back to this. Interesting too that some are using the "garage cabinet" as one. We have two garage cabinets - one which has cell phone charger planned. I had not thought about expanding that usage ...but these are all in the kitchen and I am thinking more of in a mud room with calendars, places for kids books, notes etc. although these pics are expanding my concept on the garage units.

So along the lines of icf green's and Chloe Chloe ( thanks for positing the unfinished version).

Mrs. Pete - great list!

Here's our command center. It has a charging station, homework cubbies for the kids (and the adults), place for the phone/answering machine, tissues, etc. The drawers have papers, pens, stapler, scissors, rulers, calculators, mailing supplies, keys, school stuff, phonebook, and anything else that is in the kitchen but has nothing to do with food or cooking! I LOVE it! Also, there is a place for my stepstool under it all. I'm short and use my stepstool every single day, so didn't want it "tucked away" somewhere.

{{!gwi}}

{{!gwi}}

I wanted the calendar in the command center, or next to it, but I realized with such a tall calendar, I would be better off putting it elsewhere. I was tired of standing on a stepstool to see the calendar properly.

{{!gwi}}

{{!gwi}}

Olivertwist,
I'm intrigued. Your tall pantry by frige has 2 doors. The one you showed is more like message board. Does the long door open to a pantry?

Yep, the other part is the pantry. Like I said, I originally did not want the calendar so far from the command center, but the height really made sense. We have a 4-color pen on a string hanging in there. I couldn't decide if I wanted cork or magnet in there, so we have both! Magnetic surface on the door, and cork on the inside part.

Olivertwist, that's genius!

Mine is still in progress - I replaced a desk with a wall of built-ins, and I was still getting things put away when I took these.

Like Olivertwist, I have my calendar hidden, along with a magnetic white board. You can't really see them, but there are two outlets on the left wall. The ice cream pail contains dog food - not really meant for the command center, but his food dish is on the floor in front of this cabinet!

Drawers for desk stuff - pens, scissors, stamps, phone books, check book, etc.

And file drawers. The cabinet with the calendar is above the file drawers.

We have a completely open floor plan for our old condo. Our command center(s) is not fancy but works. This organizer actually covers up the new electric panel and is great to organize coupons, school forms, calendar, lunches, and lists. In the wooden bowl on the shelf next to it we put wallets and charge iPhone behind the bowl. Keys also sometimes end up there if not hung up on the first floor landing. I The old hutch we saved, the bottom drawers holdsall user manuals, mortgage and other important household docs,. The middle drawer is for my husband school teaching projects and things he is grading.

My office area is open to the living and holds all the other stuff we need and is where we pay bills, where I work and where hubby does his projects.

We have a completely open floor plan for our old condo. Our command center(s) is not fancy but works. This organizer actually covers up the new electric panel and is great to organize coupons, school forms, calendar, lunches, and lists. In the wooden bowl on the shelf next to it we put wallets and charge iPhone behind the bowl. Keys also sometimes end up there if not hung up on the first floor landing. I The old hutch we saved, the bottom drawers holdsall user manuals, mortgage and other important household docs,. The middle drawer is for my husband school teaching projects and things he is grading.

My office area is open to the living and holds all the other stuff we need and is where we pay bills, where I work and where hubby does his projects.