Shoes!

I love them, but I don't wear all of them often. Yet I wear them... often enough to not get rid of them. I've been excellent at not buying shoes too often - aside from ballet flats. I love them and wear them DAILY and therefore, they get pretty beaten up. Those, I buy about twice a year in black and once a year in a few other colors. Otherwise, I've really changed my shoe buying ways.

Now just because I'm not continually increasing my shoe inventory doesn't mean I've also managed to thin it out. Nope, I still have lots of shoes and they are stored mostly in their original boxes. I have my dress shoes stacked in my dress closet in my wardrobe. I have my every day shoes stacked in boxes along the wall under the window (a sore sight indeed). And I have my boots in their large boxes stacked on top of my wardrobe (yes, I need a step ladder to get to them).

We have a LARGE bedroom, but that doesn't mean it has large storage. Luckily we've managed just fine with our shoes in view. We have the space to walk around them. But we are moving and I want to start new, neat and fresh. I'm hoping this apartment in Boston because our home for at least 2 years. If that is the case, I don't mind spending a bit of money to make it feel right. Now - I still want to spend... very few dollars so lets not go crazy here.

I thought about both my and Paul shoe habits. Luckily we have quite the amount of space and normal sized closets in the house. There is one walk in closet but that room will likely end up being a craft room and office. Too bad really. Assuming that we each have our own closet (in separate rooms) we can organize accordingly. I think Paul has approximately 20 pairs of shoes. This would include his dress shoes and sneakers. Too bad they don't sell 20 shoe cabinets. They are so handsome.

I was thinking since Paul has pants and shirts, but no longer items, he can put a low standing shoe rack on the floor of his closet which would display his shoes very neatly. Don't you think it will look good? Well it doesn't matter what we think - it's his closet. But let's hope he agrees. He can place 2 of these in his closet, or even a double shelf and then keep his fancy shoes in boxes for safe keeping (i.e. his fancy wedding shoes).



Now my shoes will be a bigger problem. I've thought of 2 solutions or at least what I think are solutions. 1 is a rotation shoe rack and the other is a free standing canvas shoe rack. Frankly, I may need a combination of the two.




These aren't super cheap, but I figure I'll scour craigslist and hopefully find them used. The canvas one is really starting to get me thinking though. How great would something like this be to store your crafts (yarn, fabric, paper stock, etc....) and keep in a (aforementioned) walk in closet to be rolled out when needed.

Hmm so lets see how this goes. It will be nice to get rid of that stack of broken (yet filled) shoe boxes.