Easy Shoe Storage with a Repurposed Wine Rack
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BeforeShoe storage is always an issue for our family where ever we move. We take our shoes off before we enter the house and so with 5 of us, it’s critical to have an area to store a lot of shoes. The 5 of us have close to 50 pairs of shoes PLUS athletic shoes and skates to store each season. Conservatively, that’s over 100 individual shoes to house on shoe racks. YIKES!
In a perfect world, or at least a world where we don’t move every 1 to 3 years, I’d invest in the ideal built-in storage system. A system that would fit perfectly for this exact space and would maximize every inch of space. But since we will probably be moving again within the year, I haven’t wanted to invest much money in the storage. I want functional, but cheap shoe storage.
In our current house our shoe racks are large 4 tiered shelves. Each family member has their own shelf and on each of those shelves I’m using different items to add additional levels for storage. The two girls have actual shoe racks so they have 3 levels to store their shoes. My husband is using a repurposed wood crate. My son is using a repurposed moving box.
I was using milk crates to add levels for my shoes. You can tell by the picture that they didn’t work very well. I couldn’t figure out if I wanted the crate with the opening up or facing front. When the opening was up, I had to watch that the bottoms of the shoes didn’t dirty the other shoes stored there. When the opening was to the front, I had less storage and the top of the crate was too close to the bottom of the shelf, making it useful only for flip flops.
The shoes fit perfectly into each compartment. The spaces are too small to hold husband’s shoes. To make it work for younger children’s shoes, you would have to put a piece of cardboard across each “shelf” for the middle and top levels. But that would be an easy fix. But I don’t really care about that, MY shoes fit perfectly!
AFTER
Woo hoo! The wine rack shoe rack has been working perfectly for a week now. My 13 year old daughter even told me that she wanted a wine rack for her shoes (I’ll take that as the highest compliment!). It’s amazing how happy organized shoes can make me. Getting out the door is so much easier.
Now I just have to find 4 more wine racks!
I’m a mom of 3, a veteran and military spouse. I’ve moved into 20+ homes all around the world. My passion is helping busy people make the space and time for what’s really important to them.
Good idea. I always see these at Goodwill but ever thought to use it like this. Found you through the An Oldie But a Goodie Link party.
So creative!
Thanks for linking up to the oldies party this week–the new party will be live on Monday night.
Nancy