How to organise your shoes

Sometimes it’s unavoidable to buy tons of shoes, especially if it’s a clear weakness for the shoe obsessed. Sales don’t help the situation, when 70% off tells us that we have to buy a pair… or ten. We tend to forget, when were balancing multiple boxes out of the store, that shoes take up a lot of space, especially if our living quarters are quite small. Throwing away shoes is not a happy scenario, and dedicating an entire room to just shoes is not the most practical idea either. Look around, because sometimes the best organizing tools are hidden in your closet or somewhere in your room. If you’re in anguish because your shoes are all over the place, don’t fret! Just keep reading and you’ll learn how you can keep your shoes orderly without spending too much:

Step 1: Find Your Shoes

Based on your organizing habits, you either know where to start looking or have to make a random guess and begin the search party. Common places to start are under the bed, in the car, in the back of your closet or other rooms throughout the house, maybe even on the porch! Let’s hope it didn’t rain recently…

Step 2: Get Rid Of Shoes You Don’t Wear

There may be times when you bought a pair of gorgeous heels, but you realized that there’s no appropriate occasion to wear them. In another case, you may have bought a pair online but they ended up pinching your toes and giving you blisters. A sad ordeal is when a favorite pair of shoes needs to retire because material is beginning to fall apart or fade. Honestly, there’s no point in keeping a pair unless you wear them, so consider passing them down to a friend, family member or colleague. Otherwise, donate them, throw them away, or sell them if they are still wearable.

Step 3: Sort Your Shoes

For men’s shoes, you can sort them by occasion. Leather shoes and formal shoes go to one side, while more rugged, sporty shoes can go on the other. With ladies, there are tons of ways to organize shoes. Here are some ideas:

• Organize them by color. You can arrange them from dark colors to light colors or prints on one side and solid colors on the other.
• Organize them by the height of the heel. The height of the heel can help you determine if you can wear a pair for a walk to the park or if it’s more suitable for an evening gala. Not only is sorting by heel height logical, it also saves you time from having to consider how appropriate the shoes would be for a particular occasion.
• Organize them by season. Ugg boots, rain boots, and closed shoes may belong in the winter section, whereas flip-flops and strappy sandals belong in the summer section.
• Organize them by how much care they need. Some shoes are more durable than others. In order to make sure your shoes stay with you for years to come, keep them protected. This includes airtight bags, the original box or a cloth bag for shoes that don’t respond well to moisture like leathers, those with metal bits that tarnish easily, or those that are hard to clean like suede and fur.

Step 4: Storage Ideas

Storage solutions are necessary for those who have tons of shoes and need an easy method to place them in a logical fashion. Here are some ways you can organize your shoes:

• Take a picture of a pair of your heels and stick the image inside a plastic tub or box so that the image is visible from the outside, and store the heels inside. Continue this process with each of your heels/wedges and stack each tub in an organized fashion. This allows your heels to be protected and easy to find with the picture indicating which pair it is.
• Use hooks and hangers to hang up other shoes in your closet. To use hangers, cut and bend a wire hanger so its sides resemble two u-shapes and hang your shoes there. As for hooks, just place hooks on your wall and hang up shoes by the heels. Just remember not to use hooks that are too pointy because they might leave an indentation on the heel of your shoe.
• If you have a shoe rack, store pairs with one shoe facing the opposite direction. The space-saving method may not be so obvious with flat shoes, but is a technique noticeable with high-heeled shoes.

• A hanging shoe rack is also a great option for those who want to keep their shoes in the closet. These are best for shoes that don’t have large heels. Just place the shoes in their little cubby holes, and you’re done!
• Flat shoe racks are also available in many supply stores. These little boxes with divisions can be stored under your bed or at the bottom of your closet. However, like many hanging shoe racks, they may not be able to accommodate bulky shoes with big heels.
• Boots are essential for those who live in cold or rainy areas, but they’re also a little hard to store. They usually come in big boxes which take up space, so its best to get a plastic tub to keep them in to protect the leather.

Shoes are valuable and hold great importance to many women. Shoes are an investment and in order to get the most out of your investment, keep shoes in a secure, organized place!