Shoe Closet Reorganization
This past Sunday, my husband and I re-organized our shoe closet. It’s located in the entry way and before we moved in, we installed Elfa shelving and brought along our clear shoe and boot boxes all from The Container Store. This was part of our gung-ho campaign to get and keep ourselves more organized. Prior to this in our Astoria apartment, our shoes basically lived right by the front door in a line maybe 5 feel long, pairs on top of each other on top of each other on top of each other. Not only was it difficult to find shoes, but it made the entry way a busy, messy and cluttered area.
A year after moving into this new apartment, our shoe closet (we were so happy to even have a closet for shoes!) was starting to get chaotic…boots, flip-flops and sandals (stuff that we wear regularly but don’t put back into their designated boxes because we’re too lazy) were strewn haphazardly and the floor of the closet was fast becoming the big bad swamp of hastily discarded footwear. Therapy was in order.
So we spent an hour or so and took out all our hiking boots, rainboots, pumps, sandals, flip flops, etc. and re-organized again according to frequency of wear and our height. The husband is 5’10″ and I am 5’0″, thus the top shelves are his and mine are at the bottom. We ended up purging a few pairs (all mine) – they’re on their way to Goodwill or Salvation Army.
Boots in their big boxes are housed in stacks on the floor – the least worn boots at the bottom of the stack. Next up came the most worn summer items – flip flops and sandals – in the most easy to reach shelve for me. These are without boxes for the season since I’m too lazy to put them back everyday. They will be switched with winter shoes when the time comes. All leftover shelves now house the less worn shoes.
First pic is the top of the now more organized shoe closet with some of my husband’s shoes.
This is the middle of the closet with one more shelf for my husband and then my shelves start with the smaller shoe boxes.
Another shot of the middle of the closet with my most worn stuff on the big shelf with no boxes.
This is the bottom of the closet. It was a horrific mess, but now it’s much more organized with boxes.
Our shoe closet now looks lean and mean. There’s so much empty space, I almost feel like we need to go shopping and fill it up! But alas, I think we have everything we need. My husband counted maybe 14 pairs for himself and 50 pairs for me in the closet. Some of my shoes are doubled up in the boxes because I have small feet (size 4 and 4.5) so I save more boxes and space. 50 pairs is really not a whole lot compared to most women I know, but at the same time, thinking about some folks around the world that have more dire things to worry about like will they have food tonight, 50 pairs can seem unbelievably unnecessary and wasteful. Admittedly, I don’t wear most of what I own, so additional purging/donating might be order.
For now, I’m just happy we got the shoe closet in order. Next up…coat closet!
