Having sorted out my own shoes, it was time to tackle everyone else’s. Our hall was a riot of shoes all over the place. Everyone just came in and took them off which was great for the carpets but not so good from a clutter point of view. It also made the hall look smaller than it is. Having hidden them all when a neighbour came round, she remarked that the hall seemed bigger than usual! So the shoe problem really needed to be resolved. I had used a temporary solution as mentioned last week – putting all the shoes in two Really Useful boxes. This had helped but was obviously not a permanent solution.
Hall cluttered with shoes
It is always good to start with something easy as it gives you a boost. My son is now at university and is renting a house for the next two years. He is very unlikely to live at home again so I found the few pairs of shoes he had left behind and put them in the bottom of his wardrobe. That still left another 18 or so pairs of shoes to find a home for. We have tried using the cupboard under the stairs before but it is too small and poky so family members tend not to bother replacing shoes once freed.
No-one else in the family had room in their bedrooms for their shoes so I finally decided that we needed to buy some purpose built shoe storage. It turns out there are loads of options out there!. Having spent hours researching, I decided that shoe storage that looked like a cupboard or chest of drawers would be the best solution for our hall. I found that Made.com had a good looking and not too expensive shoe cupboard (we went for the Jenson style) and this is now installed. It is easy to use and everyone now puts their shoes away without being asked.
Hall with shoe storage
So, my tips for choosing shoe storage:
- Choose something that suits the style of your home.
- Count the number of shoes you need to store to make sure the solution is big enough.
- Make sure that your intended solution takes the size of your shoes. The largest shoe size in our family is a Men’s size 8, so not that big; you may need to check with the seller as to the maximum shoe size that will fit into their storage.
- Ensure the storage is easy to use and conveniently situated – or it will be ignored.
Happy shoe tidying!
