Shoe Shelf Project

I have too many shoes. I’m really trying to go through and donate some of them, but I really have trouble parting with them. I’ll get more ruthless later, but right now, My closet was being taken up by too much wasted space.

I asked my husband if we could build a shelf along the wall about 14 inches up from the floor so that I could put shoes ON the shelf, as well as UNDER it. Yesterday we got a nice board 10 feet long and 12 inches deep. We cut it into 4 pieces: one for the shelf and then three supports. I painted the pieces yesterday so they would have all night to dry.

We installed the shelf today and I’m busily scheming on how I want to rearrange things. :0)

Here are some pics of how it was BEFORE –

This shows you that I’ve been trying to store shoes, purses, health supplies, too-small jeans and shorts, shoe inserts, and shawls on the top-level above my hanging clothes and scarves.

I have two columns of cubicles, but ALL were filled with shoes.

Ta da!  This shelf is 7 feet long and 12 inches deep. You can see the supports that hold the shelf up high enough along the wall I can put shoes under it, too.

Until I can force myself to get rid of more than the 3 pairs I’m donating so far, these are most of my shoes. I still have a couple of cubbies that have shoes in them, plus one shelf of combat boot type shoes along the top of the opposite side, but I was able to completely free up four cubbies after storing purses in some of them. I’ll probably refine this further by at least moving the summer shoes to the closet where I have my summer tops.

I was able to empty one full shelf above my clothes on one side of the closet. I moved my purses to some of the cubbies.

I realized I was starting to ‘stash’ and make excuses for what I was keeping, so I stopped for the day, but I wanted to show you that we made significant progress in making my closet much better!