OK, so after reading all this, I tentatively have a boot tray and coat rack in my amazon cart. (School is in NH). I’ll wait till the princess wakes up and get her input before hitting “submit.”
Either way, I’m ordering one of the boot trays for our Long Island house. For under $10, I have no idea why we don’t already own one.
Lots of the other stuff that sounded good-- a surge protector with multiple outlets, a fan, a “husband”-- we’ve already taken care of.