shoe disaster by the door

[mommabeehilly]

So we don't wear shoes in the house...helps keep the house clean. 

By the back door has particularly become a problem. There is just a little mat beside the door where everything piles up. I have thought and hesitated about putting a basket there because I then wonder if that will catch more than is already there. I need some advise (and would love photos) about solutions. It is right in our kitchen/dining area and I want it to be something that is aesthetically pleasing. 

TIA!

[*bejeweled*]

We have the same issue.

[doubledutch]

i think something is better than nothing, so at least it looks like shoes do belong there.  i have a small shelf.  i kind of mentally allow each person two pairs of shoes.  depending on the time of year, those could be tennies, rain boots, my ballet flats, winter boots, sandals, crocs, whatev.  i do end up with a random extra pair or two that will sit for a while, but when i notice that, eventually i bring that non-worn pair back to the closet they go in.  or in the case of my kids' off-season and soon-to-be-outgrown shoes, i declutter!

for me, a basket would be harder because i wouldn't notice and put away the unworn shoes or other stray things that end up in the bottom of the basket.  out of sight, out of mind.  however if you are likely to sort through the basket once a week or even once a month, then it's probably fine!  just have a rule not to let the basket overflow.

oh, here's another reason i wouldn't like the basket: wet shoes/boots heaped on top of each other.  that may not be such an issue in your climate though.

[Alyantavid]

I'd get a little shelf.

We have the same issue, but our door opens to the stairs so the shoes get neatly put on the stairs.  The boys are limited to 2 pairs, one pair of tennis shoes (that they typically wear every day) and one pair of boots for yucky weather.  Behind the door is a mat for dh and I's dirty shoes.  Otherwise, they sit on the stairs until they're dry and then get put away in the closet.

[boston_slackermom]

We have a 3 foot wide, 6 foot tall, shelving unit with adjustable shelves near the door. 

Each person gets 2 shelves to hold ALL their shoes. 

We have one shelf about halfway up that holds bins for gloves, hats, and scarves.

If anyone finds a stray shoe or mitten, they know where to put it. 

We put down a plastic tray for dripping boots in yucky weather.  It gets stored on top of the shelving unit when we don't need it. 

My husband wanted to keep only the current season's stuff near the door, and rotate it as needed, but I prefer it all together.  The seasons seem to change so quickly here. 

I think having it all together also keeps us from accumulating more shoes than we need. 

[jessjgh1]

I have the same issue too, and would love photos of solutions.

I'll try to clean up our shoe pile and take a photo of our for-the-time solution.  For some reason we have plenty of closet space upstairs, but nothing by the doors and only one very tiny closet for the whole 1st floor. 

In our previous home we had a nice hall closet that we could fit coats, extra shoes and our vaccuum cleaner in.  I also bought a canvas closet organizer that you hang on the bar. It had 5 or 6 good size compartments in it (I think it was supposed to be for sweater storage).  I had various things in that including shoes and my baby carriers,

OT/ Now I'm using that in our upstairs closet and it fits sheet sets nicely.

Jessica

[425lisamarie]

I have two entries, but we use the one off the garage mostly.  I have a tall unit almost to the ceiling (its' the Besta series from IKEA and next to it a bench and a shoe rack.  I need to get rid of the bench and get one that is double duty.  THey have a long short unit that I plan to get and put a cushion on top adn under it enough shelves for shoes.  I also keep a heavy duty type mat in the garage by the door with a tall shoe rack for rain boots, snow boots or extra shoes.  I keep it vaccumed and hose off often so we can take our shoes off even before going in the house.  I really would like to get something even easier to clean like rubbery or something.  I have the tall tower divided and everyone has a shelf with a heavy square linen basket.  I also have coat racks for hanging coats and hangers

[MrsH]

We use these shoe bins from ikea: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/30110832  The cream ones blend in well with our decor and they're so slim that we can still use our hallway. The baby's shoe's go on the top, kids' and mine inside.  My husband keeps his shoes lined under the bed, which I hate but it's what works for him. We then have coat hooks for everyone's jackets.  Still struggling to find a good spot for hats/gloves though. 

[425lisamarie]

For seasonal items i have cute heavy canvas baskets hanging from hooks.  In the winter it's hats/mittens/gloves, in the summer it's extra flip flops, sun screen, sunglasses and sun hats. 

[colsxjack]

We have the same problem. Except we come in our front door and into a hallway. So there isn't much room for benches, shoe racks, etc. And there is not any closet in the main floor.

Although, the hall has a doorway into the living room and another next to it that goes into the dining room. We took down the wall between the rooms to open it up. And so now we got a small shelp with six cubbies and put it into the doorway flush with the hall. It protrudes into the living room and is back-to-back with a bookcase the same height and width. Together they also act as a side table for the couch.

The top three cubbies have material baskets in them. One is for the babies shoes and stuff. One has the ergo in it and a bit of other room. And the third has hats and mitts in it. The bottom three cubbies are open and each of the other 3 living in the house have a cubbie for shoes. We can keep as many as we want to jam into our cubbie. But realistically 2-3 pairs each. The rest of our pairs are supposed to live in our bedroom closets, but in reality we stilll end up with some shoes cluttering the hallway. But still much more managable than nothing. And it fixes the problem of not having a side table for the living room.

[jessjgh1]

Ok, I'm going to attemp to put the photos up since I think we can now put them right in the post.

Underneath the fabric that I found on sale and didn't even sew (yet) are some simple shelves.  I see them in the organizer section of Kmart, Targets, and HomeDepot/Lowes' etc.   I just put them together myself and had ended up with  bunch of them from various moves/etc. Some were in the garage, some in closets

I currently have 2 of the shelves 'units' side by side (and 2 stacked on top of each other) because we happened to have 4 of them.  At our previous house we had 3 stacked high and one in a closet.  This does mean the fabric I had that happened to match this room is sheer because it isn't long enough to fold up onto itself, but I've just been too busy to fix it.

Our adult shoes are also a bit too wide for any of the shelves, so they stick out of the bottom.  So I find I need to have the fabric loose.  But for 'free' it works for now- even though I dream about a unit that fit our adult shoes (and kids boots) and have a bigger spot for some backpacks. 

I'm considering getting a child size coat rack so the kids can actually hang their coats up...

We've only been  here thru the summer, so I probably will need to think of a tray or something for boots-- but we also may come through the door off to the side if we clean out the garage so we can get the car in/out that in the winter.  I'll have to make sure we all get in the habit of taking things off right by that door.

Not sure that is at all helpful, but it's been a bit of a help to me to have a simple cheap solution.

Jessica

[Geist]

we have the same issue by our front door (apartment so no back door) and we currently use a shoe rack I bought at Target ages ago. Of course, we still don't put our shoes AWAY when we take them off, so that's one of the bigger problems right there...I was actually going to post a link to the IKEA shoe racks that you hang on the wall and the door pulls out to reveal the shoes. If I didn't live in an apartment and could screw things into my walls, I would totally get one of those!

[momofmine]

Originally Posted by boston_slackermom 

We have a 3 foot wide, 6 foot tall, shelving unit with adjustable shelves near the door. 

Each person gets 2 shelves to hold ALL their shoes. 

We have one shelf about halfway up that holds bins for gloves, hats, and scarves.

If anyone finds a stray shoe or mitten, they know where to put it. 

We put down a plastic tray for dripping boots in yucky weather.  It gets stored on top of the shelving unit when we don't need it. 

My husband wanted to keep only the current season's stuff near the door, and rotate it as needed, but I prefer it all together.  The seasons seem to change so quickly here. 

I think having it all together also keeps us from accumulating more shoes than we need. 

Wow, this sounds awesome!  I wish we had space for something like this.  We have a shelf by the door.  One of those stackable wire rack things, but it doesn't look very nice.  And we have more than two pairs per person.  My problem is that we do have needs for different types of shoes, running shoes, slip-on shoes, cleats, rain boots.  In prinicipal, I like the idea of only 2 prs per person by the door, but then we wind up needing more, and I wouldn't know where to put the rest.

[coyotemist]

We have a mat by the door for the most commonly used used (and yes, they end up in a pile, but I sort them every so often, and it's our playroom, so I don't worry about it much) and in the closet behind the door we have one of these:

http://www.amazon.com/Seville-Classics-SHE15905-3-Tier-Utility/dp/B002QB1DE8/ref=sr_1_1?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1290360268&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&rh=n%3A695481011&page=1

Amazon has about a bazillion shoe rack choices if you have a place to put them.  Or, as pp have suggested, IKEA has some good choices, too. 

[mommabeehilly]

OK so I have my solution...ready?  You might giggle...

At a family meeting I asked if there was any reason to have a basket by the back door, with the door to the garage 10 paces away (where there is a shoe set-up) and bedroom closets 15 paces away. We all agreed that it was a clutter by the back door and that it was a bit of a hazard in such a small corner and shoes blocking the door. 

And voila...shoe space removed.  Shoe removal still in tact...just the spot to store them, well...it's gone. Yay for more room in my kitchen! Yay for less clutter! And it's just an extra bonus that I don't have to buy one more silly thing. 

Thanks everyone for chiming in. I am grateful to know that I am not alone...

[goinggreengirl]

We have a little wire shelf. Though I would like to get a basket there as well to hold hats, scarves, mittens, etc.

[OnEarth]

We have a basket that occasionally overflows. We'd love to get a low shelf to put them onto, preferably one that DD could sit on while we help her with her shoes. We do have to periodically weed through the basket, and throw all the pairs that are infrequently worn back into the closet (like dress shoes).

[nathansmum]

Similar to a PP, we have a narrow drawer unit by the door. Our shoe collection is right inside the front door which comes right into our dining room/main living area. I have a woven basket style drawer unit. Several drawers are for the shoes (mainly the kids and maybe my everyday shoes), another drawer is for hats (summer and winter), and another drawer for cloth bags (for library books, shopping, swimming etc). Works really well and looks nice too. Often the shoes are dumped in front of the drawers, but it's easy enough to toss them inside and be done with it.

[delphine]

We have a bench that has three cubbies in it.  There is a similar one sold by Pottery Barn but we had ours made (because we couldn't afford the Pottery Barn one).  I did splurge and buy the Pottery Barn baskets to go in each cubby.  We currently have three throw pillows on top of the bench but I would really like to have a bench cushion for it.  We pretty much keep all of the seasonally appropriate kids shoes and some of my and dh's shoes in it.  I try to clean the baskets out every few weeks and transfer extra shoes to the appropriate closets. 

In the winter, we use one of the baskets for gloves, hats, scarves etc. 

It's worked out great. 

[karne]

One more idea!  I've posted about this before:  I have a pine, unfinished, simple set of bookshelves.  I attached chicken wire to the back of the shelves so that nothing could fall off the back (it actually gives it a nice country sort of look). T he kids have 2 shelves each-very easy, very contained.  You could also hang some nice fabric, either tacking it on, or using pressure curtain rods, as a covering for the front of the shelves.  Works really well for us.