Daily Mail Organizing Center

Stacks of mail arrive daily, smothering the table near the entry, burying the dining room sideboard, and consuming the small desktop in the kitchen. What to do? Here are some ideas for handling the constant barrage of letters, circulars, broadsheets, and publications.

Your first line of defense against the assault of mail should be near the door you come in with your daily stack. Here's where to place letters along with coats, keys, and such. There's room here for a couple of day's accumulation before the pile gets moved to a final sorting station.

If it worked for Benjamin Franklin, why won't it work for you? There's elegance in the ease of using slots or cubbies for sorting. It's a classic solution that's brilliant in its effective simplicity. Mail sorters can be purchased at many office supply stores and online at such Web sites as Amazon.com and Buy.com.

A tall shutter found at an antiques store becomes a country-inspired mail sorter when propped near an entry. Just tuck mail into the louvered slots. It should hold about three days of mail.

Sick of all those bills? Toss them into a nicely designed waste basket as you enter your home. There's room enough in the basket to avoid those urgent envelopes for a few more days.

What's the best device ever invented for holding mail? A mailbox. Use them to create a sorting center in your home. Find four small mailboxes with shapes that you like, paint them in various complementary colors, and mount as a pleasing wall display. You get instant sorting with one box for bills, one for more welcome mail, one for junk mail, and one for publications.

Yes, these were originally used to collect snapshots, stuffed animals, old letters, and such in one convenient spot. But put a picture of each household member on a basket and you've got a mail-sorting center where you toss in envelopes like post office workers do in the bins they use.

Sewers should stitch this solution. Create a fabric mail sorter and hang it in a convenient spot. The version shown here was tailored for out-going letters. Adapt it for incoming mail by including big slots for envelopes and small slots for a letter opener and a box cutter (for packages).

A few strips of wallpaper or some rub-on decals transforms a shallow metal box with handles into a portable sorting center. Set a box out as your collection center near the entry door, and keep matching boxes for deep sorting that separates the bills from the fun stuff.

Here's a storage center masquerading as decor near entry. A pair of wall-hung painted wire holders catches the mail. There is also a box for keys, and shoes are displayed like collectibles in a funky wooden tower.

An old wooden container once used as a cheese carton has been reimagined as a wall-mounted mail box. Not to your taste? Paint three similar boxes with vibrant color and hang them on the wall as a collection. One for letters, one for cards, and one for magazines. Hide bills in a drawer.

In this arrangement, mail is plopped into handsome wicker baskets attached to a desk. Spraying the woven baskets with an aqua paint integrates the mail center into the room design.

Postal inspectors everywhere would love to have this solution. This built-in cabinetry includes space for sorting, stashing, and trashing mail. There's also room for mail supplies to handle letters that are going out.