How I’d Solve 4 Shoe-Organization Problems
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Since I bothwrite about organizationandtest shoesfor work, you might assume my footwear collection is organized. It’s the reverse — in the war of shoes vs. organizational skill, the shoes have won. Any scheme I invent is immediately undone by my own habits. I wouldn’t have it any other way, though: I sleep better when the my shoes break containment from the front hallway and end up arranged under my bed.
After fixingbathroom-organization puzzlesandcable-management snarls, I put out a call to readers, friends, andNew Yorkcolleagues for their most intractable shoe-storage problems to see if I could offer solutions. Below are my suggestions, from a color-coded family shoe closet to a miniature archive for the fanciest footwear.
A family of four with a mixed-up shoe pile
Primary complaint:“Every pair of shoes must be removed and stored in a large front closet when we enter the house, but they slowly build into this insane pile, and there’s a constant flow of random crap my kids dump on the floor. No one can ever find their shoes because they end up all jumbled. Also my dog loves shoes, and if any are left outside this closet, he eats them.”
Color-code the shoe closet.
A home like this with actually sufficient space for shoes is a thing of rare beauty, like a white elephant or aCheeto shaped like a seahorse. I agree with the instinct here — if any shoes outside the closet get eaten by a dog, the shoes stay inside the closet. All that’s missing is structure to get the shoes off the ground.
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If space allows, consider adding a few more shelves to give every member of the household their own zone within the closet; you can even color-code them to avoid the mixed-up-shoe problem. Ikea’s Billy bookcases are cheap and come in two sizes and several colors, including the prettyprimary blueabove. Use the bottom shelves for shoes and the higher shelves for random crap (and when those shelves start overflowing, that’s a signal to get rid of anything that hasn’t found a use).
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The Billy shelves are adjustable so you can group them closer together toward the bottom for shoes and space them farther apart up top for the stuff dumping ground. Depending on the shoes’ proportions, you may want a few extra shelves to maximize your space; Ikea sells these separately.
Closed storage for the fanciest shoes
Primary complaint:“I’ve had the Open Spaces rack for years, and while I don’t mind when my Puma Speedcats collect dust, I want my fancy shoes in closed storage. They need some room since they have embellishments and I don’t want them catching on anything.”
Build a mini shoe archive.
My imagination ran wild with this question from Strategist senior writer andfancy-shoecollectorAmbar Pardilla. Those fancy shoes need a storage system that will protect their raffia trim and tiny crystal bows. My first thought was the Container Store’s drop-front shoe box, beloved bysneakerheads, but Ambar mentioned she wanted one piece of furniture, not a stack of boxes.
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The Container Store Large Drop-Front Shoe Box Case of 6
I did some research into how museums store delicate shoes and was surprised to find they aretypicallynotkept in fully enclosed storage — the Metarranges them on pullout metal rackssimilar to a flat filing cabinet, each pair padded withfoam bumpers. I think a filing cabinet is the move, and this Winsome Wood option has deep enough drawer boxes to fit even the highest of Ambar’s sandals. If making your own foam bumpers is too tall an order, you can line the drawers with felt to prevent the shoes from sliding around.
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For the fanciest of fancy shoes, here’s a shoe-preservation kit that includes 25 sheets of acid-free tissue paper, cotton gloves, and a transparent lid so you can peer in and check on them.
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Shoe logjam by the front door
Primary complaint:“I hate shoes in the entryway. They take up so much room, and the closet hangers between our bedroom and living room are so ugly, but we are banned by the landlords (and the fire code) from keeping our shoes outside.”
Store the shoes on an angle to maximize space.
When will Zohran act on the fire codes restricting shoes in the hallway? I feel your pain at having to shimmy past a shoe rack on the way into the house. Any amount we can shrink this shoe organizer will make the entryway more open, and the best option is to store shoes on an angle.
You’ve got a fair amount of vertical space here, so I looked at tall skinny racks that will give you similar capacity with a shallower footprint. Below are three favorites, all smaller than the current ten-inch-deep rack: an open steel tower fromYamazaki Home, one of my favorite sources for well-made housewares for small spaces; a two-tier shoe cabinet from Wayfair recommended by another respondent; and a Shaker-style cabinet that is the nicest-looking I’ve seen in a minute.
For the shoes hung on doors, I blame the floppy fabric for the ugliness. Try swapping them out for a metal-frame hanger, which will sit evenly on the wall and look less chaotic.Several Strategist staffersown and love this Whitmor hanger, which fits 36 pairs and comes in ten colors.
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The Rick Owens superfan with three walls of shoes
Here is a solved shoe-organization problem from a theoretical physicist with around 380 pairs of prized shoes, mostly by Rick Owens, Margiela, and Balenciaga: Store them in wall-to-wall Container Store drop-front boxes.
“In grad school, I had open containers, and everything got covered in dust. So when I moved, I wanted to keep them enclosed,” he wrote. “The point of the walls is just to keep them displayed and accessible but not get dusty. The Container Store bins are cheapish, I needed a lot, and I wanted to be able to see what was in them.”
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