MN wisdom needed... dinning table used as a dumping area...

[MTWTFSS]

We live in a small 2 bedroom house, and because of this our dinning table sits next to the front door. When people come in they just dump stuff on it so we can never use it for eating :(

Any suggestions how to stop this from happening...

Put two legs up on books so it slopes and stuff falls off.

Obv remove books for eating.

Hello again

I feel your pain! Dh is awful for this. I've found keeping the table laid helps (no room for anything else!)

Alternatively, what sort of stuff? Can it be assigned a home elsewhere?

Put a cardboard box underneath the table.
As soon as anyone dumps anything on the table, remove it and put it in the box.
They will soon remember not to dump things.

Or what swim said!

Yes, keep it fully set, plates and cutlery and glasses included.

Or stop letting people into your house

Get rid of it. We did with ours which was quite large and don't miss it at all. We've a smaller table in the kitchen. If I did miss it I'd get one of these fold down ones. I tried everything to stop the dumping. But I was probably the main culprit.

I think I need to keep an area near the door where DH can keep his post.

I shall trying keeping the table laid :)

Thanks everyone :)

Marking place as we have the same problem. Like the idea of the box under the table. The problem arises from stuff not having a home I think. Mail which needs dealing with is a key culprit in our house so I've just put a corkboard on the wall above the table which it can be pinned to

I like the box under the table idea too. Also agree with mebug that you need to consider where this stuff really belongs. Does it have a proper home? Could that home be more conveniently located? For instance, it might make more sense to have a shoe rack in your front room than a magazine rack, if all the shoes clutter up your living room anyway. You might have to start with a bit of a declutter.

Good luck... my DH covers the 'dining table' with incoming post, piles of TBD stuff, journals... woe betide anyone who moves 'vital documents'. So... first I got a container with compartments which I thought would be ideal for incoming/pending/outgoing documents ... it's not being used for that, the piles stayed on the table. Then we got a nice desk.... still hasn't solved the problem.

If we have visitors he'll make a big effort and clear it off but it re-accumulates all too soon. Fortunately as there's usually just the three of us we can eat at the kitchen table, but it looks such a mess when you come into the house.