Special Storage for Special Shoes
Posted on | January 27, 2012 | No Comments
I’m a confessed shoe hound. I love shoes and collect glorious high heels, almost like artwork. Some may say that I’m crazy for owning so many shoes and hardly ever wearing them, but it makes me happy just to see them and put them on every now and then, even if it’s only for a few minutes. Now, the problem is getting my “pretties” mixed up with all the other shoes that I really do wear every day. I wear slippers and flip flops around the house. I wear tennis shoes or Mary-Jane slip-ons to the kids’ school, the grocery store, or to run errands. Plus, I share a closet with my husband, so my prized possessions get smashed, tumbled, scuffed and forgotten, deep in the pile of smelly boots and gym shoes.
This is not okay. I’ve tried to protect them, but they just get shuffled back into the mess. So, I’ve decided to display them in some kind of interesting way. I saw a picture where a girl had come up with a fabulous idea. She installed a strip of crown moulding on the wall, painted it in some creative color, and then used it to hang her shoes by the high heel. I loved it! However, I actually wear these from time to time. I’m worried if I hang mine like that I’ll just see all of the little scuffs and marks, which would make me sad. I also don’t want to constantly be walking by and knocking them off, or see that they’re leaving dirty marks on the wall. So, really, I need another solution.
My closet is already packed in perfectly organized glory. I call it my masterpiece with good reason. I toiled over plans and designs for a week figuring out how to get a small reach-in closet to work for both winter and summer clothes for both my husband and myself. We don’t have any dressers, except for a small lingerie chest, which is completely full of my other obsession, pajamas, but we won’t talk about that right now. So, finally I got an idea.
My friend was giving away some old furniture from her house that she didn’t have room for or had replaced with a different style. Of course, because I don’t like to clutter my rooms with a lot of big furniture, she thought that I could use some. I went to look, specifically to see if I would be inspired by something to store my shoes, or perhaps, to make an adjustment to my closet so that the shoes would fit. But, I really didn’t want to touch the closet. It took me forever. Everything in it is perfectly placed, and we no longer have anything in storage. It’s, like I said, my masterpiece. Except that there is no special place for my heels.
So, anyway. My friend had this great “front room” table. It’s like a skinny runner table, meant for an entryway or something of the sort. But, it’s not just a table, it’s a glass cabinet. The sides and front are all doors with beveled glass. The shelves inside were glass and I instantly thought, “Shoes”! Then she showed me the best thing I’ve ever seen. She touched the hinge and the whole thing lit up inside! It wasn’t a table. It was a china cabinet hutch! WOW! I would have never thought of it, but the stars and planets aligned, and there it was. The most awesome display for my shoes I could ever imagine!
About the Author: Ellen Hamm is on the staff of Everything Hangers, a leading online resource for the highest quality clothes hangers, including sturdy metal hangers and cedar hangers. Learn more about our high end hangers at http://www.everythinghangers.com.