Tuesday Shoesday – So many shoes, so little space!

Let me take you back to the 90s, when it seemed that every girls’ magazine was telling us all to store shoes in their boxes with a little Polaroid photo on the front – ‘it’s so easy to find the pair you want to wear at a glance’. Seeing a neatly organised pile of white shoe boxes, carefully labelled was such an enticing proposition. But did those fashion mag editors really think about the danger of collapsing piles when you reach for the pumps at the bottom of your well-organised stack? And did they consider the ongoing issues of spilled-out tissue-paper, cardboard-corner-tears and the confusion when shock-horror the photos fall off the boxes and your favourite red wedges can only be found by emptying 10 boxes all over the floor..? Plus, my shoes never came in the same matching boxes, and mix-n-matching boxes from Stead and Simpson and Dolcis (remember them?!) meant that I never really achieved that swish, well-organised look.

So, I’ve been looking around for a modern solution to an age-old problem and of course, I turned to Swedish storage specialists Ikea. I always shopped with them as a ‘poor student’ because I lived close to a huge Ikea megastore, I could always find the piece of furniture that I needed, and I could actually afford it with my tiny budget! Well, that budget hasn’t really changed since leaving university, but I have found that I need more storage to make the most of the space in my tiny home. At the moment, my pride-and-joy shoes are dumped in big plastic tubs and hidden away under my bed (and a few are stashed loose under drawers and in the bottom of the wardrobe – not good for scuffs). I always had a dream of having my special heels (the ones that are too pretty and too painful to wear) on display in an illuminated glass cabinet! Well, maybe it’ll come true this year! 

Since I moved house last year, all my sewing stuff, fabric and tutu stock has been packed away and piled up, so I’m still feeling quite unsettled about not having a space to sit down and work, with everything in its rightful place. I don’t think I get half as much work done when I have to unpack it all in the morning and then put it all away again at the end of the day. So I’m going to be sorting out a dedicated studio space for myself over the coming months and I have already been pouring over the Ikea catalogue to find decent drawers, filing cabinet (I’m in love with a red one!) and shelving. So watch this space to see how my own makeover comes together! And in the meantime, please share your own footwear-organising projects and tweet me photos of how you keep your shoes super-neat at @cassiefairy

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