Family Command Center Printables & Tips
Have you heard of a family command center? I hadn’t until it showed up on my Pinterest feed one day. I thought it looked interesting but didn’t feel an immediate need to build one.
However, I recently started implementing a meal planning system and working on scheduling out my days more effectively. I quickly realized how convenient it would be to keep all of my meal planning and scheduling centralized instead of scattered all over the kitchen. (One glance at our overflowing kitchen bin full of old mail also made clear that we needed some kind of mail organization wall or system.)
So, I set out to make a family command center in our kitchen.
I took in a couple different family command center layout ideas and decided that what was most important to me was to have everything very functional and unified in appearance, with minimal opportunity to accumulate clutter. (For example, I did not want a large pocket for pens on the wall because I knew it would only lead to stuffing other documents and items in that would eventually just look like a cluttered mess.)
(Note: This post contains affiliate links, which means if you purchase through one of my links I make a commission on your purchase – at no additional expense to you! Read my full disclosure here.)
When it came to the elements of a family command center, I liked including a large calendar to centralize the family schedule. I use a Messy Momma Planner and a Busy Boss Planner for all my blog scheduling and appointment/calendar notes for later months, but I’ve always kept a calendar hanging in the kitchen for my husband to also be able to see more important events and dates. I liked the idea of making a large calendar central to our command center.
As I mentioned, it was important to me that our family command center was very functional for us – so I also decided that I also wanted to include my meal planning, grocery shopping lists, and weekly task planning on the wall. In addition, I wanted it to be for the WHOLE family to stay organized, so closer to the ground I planned several spots for different charts that the kids may use in future seasons of life. (Right now one of those spots includes a potty training chart!)
Creating a command center wasn’t difficult to do and it did bring me a sense of life organization that I didn’t have before. FINALLY, our mail clutter is gone and I no longer forget things that my husband tells me to grab at the grocery store since he can add them to the list himself!
Since implementing the family command center, our family can all stay on the same page with our schedules, meals, and to dos. Most importantly, it keeps me mentally organized each week – which is a big win!
If you’re new to the idea of a family command center, here are a few of my command center 101 tips:
1. Figure out your organization pain points.
For us this was definitely the mail! We had a mail bin with a key rack inside the door that was not even holding any mail (just other paperwork clutter) and a big bin in the kitchen full of old mail. It was an obvious and overwhelming amount of disorganization.
Whatever your organization pain point is, figuring it out can help you to prioritize what to include in your command center. I saw a few ideas on Pinterest that included labeled bins for “mail” and “bills” and I fell in love with the idea. Therefore, having those bins was a priority as I mapped out what to include on our wall.
2. Take a minute to think about your kitchen style (or whatever room you are putting the command center in)!
Our kitchen has all white cabinetry with light pink walls and a somewhat retro look to it. I knew right away that I didn’t want any black or dark wood appearance for our command center or it would just look clunky or even cluttered instead of sleek and organized.
Whatever the decor of the room you are working with, making your command center to coordinate with it will help the whole thing to look more like an organized addition to the room instead of another area of cluttered “things.” For our command center I chose to keep everything all white so it would look clean and coordinate with our white cabinetry and pastel kitchen colors.
3. Decide on one way for all of your command center items to be used.
By this I mean, decide on how you want to write on each different organization tool, etc. If you have some items that are chalkboards, some that are paper, and some that are dry erase your command center may look disorganized and it will probably be more difficult to use. For our family command center I put everything into frames with glass so that we can easily use dry erase marker on everything and wipe clean with paper towels.
4. Think through your family command center layout – but not too hard.
Before I purchased all of my accessories and nailed everything to the wall I thought through approximately how much space I had to work with. This helped me to gain a rough idea of how much I would be able to include on the wall. I didn’t have a lot of space to work with and I have small children that would probably reach and destroy anything below 3 feet, so I picked my priority items to include.
I recommend thinking through your space to plan what items you want to include in your family command center, but I also don’t recommend thinking too hard about exactly where it will all go and how it will look as a finished product. Maybe this is just my style, but I truly didn’t know exactly how I was going to lay out our family command center until I started nailing things to the wall. I gathered all of my items and just started holding them up to the wall until I came up with a configuration of them that I liked. It ended up looking very different than how I thought I would lay things out in my head, but fits nicely and has been very functional for us!
If you are one that likes to precisely plan before executing a project, than go ahead and measure everything out! I’m typically not that patient and I found it easier to piece together all of the little elements once I had them in hand and could hold them up to the wall together.
For more details on the family command center that I created, below are lists of all the materials and free printables that I used:
Family Command Center Elements:
- Mail Bins – We used these white ones from Amazon. They stacked together nicely with enough room for plenty of mail in each one and hung easily!
- Command Hooks – We used two white ones like these for key hooks. They are super easy to place and don’t harm the wall when you remove them!
- Marker/Pen Holder – We used this one that fits several dry erase pens perfectly but doesn’t have room for much else (on purpose).
- Frames – We used four 8×10 cheapy white frames like these and then two larger 11×14 white frames like these for the calendars. I purchased a few extra of the small frames because I plan to add to the bottom of our command center with things like chore charts, etc. as our kids get a little bit older.
- Dry Erase Markers – We purchased this pack of extra fine tip dry erase markers to use with our command center. (TIP: I quickly learned that these markers don’t write very dark if you store them upright in the pen holder. Store them upside down and the ink comes out nice and dark!)
Family Command Center Printables:
All of the charts and calendars included in our family command center are available for immediate download here on my blog! They all feature a unified violet and teal watercolor design.
(Note: These are all free except the potty training rewards chart!)
You can read more about each one and download using the links below.
- Weekly Meal Planning Template
- Categorized Grocery List Template
- Weekly Task Planning Template
- Blank Monthly Calendars
- Mail Bin Labels – Note: I laminated these with my Amazon Basics Laminator before taping them on the bins so that they wouldn’t curl or start to fade. If you don’t have access to a laminator, simply covering them with some masking tape would work great too!
- Kid’s Reward Chart
If you are considering adding a family command center to your home then I hope that these tips and printables were helpful to you! Happy Organizing!
Family Command Center Printables & Tips
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