Shoe Storage

This was supposed to be a post about how we finished tiling our backsplash. Unfortunately, we have not yet finished the backsplash. Arg! Therefore, I am going to share with you a post that was supposed to happen in January. I took the before pictures at that time and since then I have been planning to sort my shoe storage, but somehow it never happened until last month. My father took me out and bought me five pairs of shoes for my birthday. Isn’t he a good dad? This finally forced me to do something about my shoes.

The recent shoe purchase may have spurred this project, but in order to tell the story properly I am going to have to take you back to 2011 when I was still single and living alone in the Cape of Dreams. Douglas was a frequent visitor, but he had his own apartment and thus I had all the space to myself. I am much happier overall living with my love, but I must admit that a small part of me still misses the storage I had to give up storage I had to give up when he moved in.

However, I regress. Way back in 2011 I bought some cheap wooden shelves in Bed, Bath and Beyond and placed them in the hall closet outside my bedroom door. A few years before that, I had bought plastic shoe boxes in Target. I snapped pictures of my shoes using a white towel as a backdrop, printed them out and stuck them into my shoe boxes. Here is the picture of my ingenious shoe storage that I posted on Facebook because this blog did not yet exist.

Everything was perfect until Crème arrived. It really was not her fault, but we needed a place to put the kitty litter and thus my shoes were banished to the basement.

The problem with having my shoes in the basement was that I was much less likely to put them away than I was when they were right outside our bedroom door. They started to pile up in the kitchen and in the armoire. These is a picture that I took in January when I first planned this post.

Things worsened as time went on. The jumble in my closet was really getting on my nerves, but the pile in the kitchen was so annoying that I could not even take myself to take pictures of it. The boxes in the basement were mostly sitting empty on their shelves. Something had to be done.

Finally, with my new shoe boxes in stacks at the foot of my bed, I got my butt in gear and sorted out the mess. First, I opened and cleaned all of the boxes and shoes. Then, I took pictures of the shoes that had been purchased since 2011. Finally, I put the shoes to sell in our yard sale in the cardboard shoe boxes and placed the rest in the plastic shoe boxes with their picture in front.

I put one half of the wooden shelves in the kitchen. This means that we can finally walk through that room without tripping over footwear.

I placed the other set of wooden shelves in the wardrobe. Here I put the boxes of sandals and shoes that I will wear this summer. The other shoes went back down to the basement. In the fall, I will switch out the shoes that are kept in the bedroom. I feel so much better now that everything has its place!

Before I end this post, I want to clarify that I am not a crazy shoe person. I have never paid more than $50 for a pair of shoes since I wait until I find an amazing sale before purchasing anything. I did once pay almost $200 for a pair of hiking boots, but sixteen years later I still have them and wear them frequently. I was always taught that it is better to pay to buy quality shoes. Therefore, I never purchase cheaply made shoes. The reason that I have so many is that I take very good care of them and keep them until they wear out. My work shoes tend to last less time because as a teacher I am on my feet and walking most of the day. Dress shoes tend to last me forever and when they break I pay to fix them rather than throw them out.

Also, if you are wondering where I keep my boots, they are in long flat plastic bins under my bed. Where do you keep your shoes?

Happy Homemaking!