Tuesday Shoesday – Space saving shoe storage

Earlier this year I started to sort out my clutter. It was an absolute necessity, as I was moving house and I didn’t want to take all the accumulated clutter with me. Plus, I knew that I would have much less storage space so some of my belongs either had to go to the charity shop (which a lot did!) or be storage away safely so that I could get to them again at a later date. To cut a long story short, my shoe cupboard was one of the first casualties. Not only could I not fit all my shoes into my new wardrobe but I couldn’t even fit the cupboard itself into the house! What’s a girl to do??

A lot of my shoes were safely boxed up and have been in storage over the past couple of months, but the only trouble with this is that I have to plan ahead if I want to wear a particular pair of shoes. There’s nothing like rummaging through unlabelled boxes of shoes two days before you want to wear them to put you off the idea. Ahh, I’ll just wear my boots again…

Anyway, I’ve recently been researching ways to bring my shoe collection back into the home, and that means creating small space storage solutions. So I took to Pinterest a found a few ideas that I thought are well-worth sharing with you today. I’m not sure which I’ll use just yet, but it’s a step in the right direction!

1. Stacking triangle storage boxes from A Piece Of Rainbow

These boxes are simply one piece of cardboard folded into triangles and stacked up to make the most of the space at the bottom of the wardrobe. By making the triangle box the same depth as the cupboard you can store each pair of shoes in one triangle – one shoe behind the other. This allows you to find the shoes you want at a glance – time saving as well as money-saving! It also means you can grow your collection by simple making another box whenever you buy a new pair of shoes and adding it to the stack. And don’t forget that the spaces in between the boxes are storage space too!

2. DIY shoe ladder from Design Sponge

Even if you’ve not got much space in your hallway or bedroom, you can probably still fit a narrow ladder against the wall. This DIY ladder has slightly deeper rungs so has the depth for a pair of shoes. If you’re storing shoes for the whole family, this ladder lends itself to having kids shoes at the top and bigger pairs of shoes can sit nearer the bottom of the ladder where there’s more space for them to overlap the rungs between the ladder and the wall. And don’t forget that space underneath the bottom rung of the ladder – that’s valuable floor storage space too!

3.Towel rails from The Eisenharts

What a simple idea to make the most of the space behind a door. These are inexpensive IKEA towel rails and the shoes are simply tucked behind them. High heels are anchored into place with the heel behind the rail. It’s a great space-saving idea and it’s a really low price solution. I’d consider spray painting the rails in colours to coordinate with my room. Or you could even use different colour rails for each family member if you’re storing shoes in the hallway, that way everyone would be responsible for keeping their own shoes tidy!At the moment I can’t quite decide which option is best for me so my shoes will carry on living in storage in the meantime. The important thing with moving house is not to be too hasty with getting rid of your possessions. I think it’s easy to make a quick decision to get rid of something, yet you can be sure that you’ll be wondering where it is after a couple of months, only to realise that you passed it on to the charity shop while you were moving. I think that a better idea is to store your favourite things, neatly labelled and safely boxed, while you’re moving so that you can make the decision with a clear head after the move is complete. Packing and storing your stuff doesn’t mean you have to keep everything, but at least you’ll know whether you can live without it – the likelihood is that if you’ve not missed something after a couple of months, you probably never really needed it or used it that much anyway!What do you think of these ideas? Let me know how you store your shoes – it might give me inspiration! Perhaps you have an ingenious idea for making the most of a small space that you’d like to share in the comments below? All advice would be gratefully received!