The following is a guest post about organized shoe storage from regular contributor, Rachel.
I don’t have a coat closet in our Florida house. I’ll never know why and it bugs me a great deal. No place to drop shoes or hang light jackets up during our chilly season isn’t ideal for the average organizing junkie. 😉 I had to come up with a solution, particularly for shoes, and I found it at Ikea.
In the past, I showed you another favorite organizer of mine from Ikea and Laura simplified life using the same product HERE. On occasion, I’m more content to make a useful purchase knowing the organizing payoff will be long-term. In this case, I couldn’t cleverly hide shoes anywhere near our front door because there simply wasn’t space to do so. I had to use a piece of furniture in plain sight to conceal our shoes.
This is the Hemnes Shoe Cabinet and as a bonus, it’s on sale right now. What I LOVE about it are the large bins for hiding shoes and a “drop zone” drawer on top. The drawer is shallow but perfect for containing keys, loose coins, and other miscellanea. To keep things from rolling around, I used a few plastic dollar bins as dividers.
The bottom two pullout compartments house our shoes, and plenty of them! My husband and I take the higher drawer. My oldest daughter gets the bottom drawer. I started stashing socks inside her drawer because keeping shoes and socks together made sense to her. It looks a wee bit messy to have socks stuffed inside half of the compartment, but it honestly works best for my daughter. You may remember that I try to let her organize in her own way whenever possible.
The baby’s shoes aren’t much of a problem right now. Her shoes are so little, I could easily fit them in the top drawer. But, for now, they rest on top because baby shoes are too cute to hide. 😉
Above all, the best aspect is the safety. I was worried about the drawer-pulling mechanics being used by a child and the possibility of the whole unit falling down on her. As is with most of Ikea’s furniture, this storage cabinet comes with brackets that mount it securely to the wall.
It also has the back legs notched out so that it fits snugly against the wall by resting above the baseboard. Unfortunately, you can see in the picture below that our baseboards are just a smidge too tall for the natural cut-out. We thought about carving away more of the wood but the millimeter or so that catches on the top of our baseboard isn’t noticeable enough for the trouble.
Normally, I wouldn’t highlight a random organizing product such as this unless I’ve given it a tweak or have an unusual way I utilize it (like the cart). However, I had a friend stop over a few months ago and was so surprised to see the hidden beauty of this shoe organizer. I figured if she didn’t know about the Hemnes Shoe Cabinet, then others may also benefit from me writing a quick (unsponsored) post.
I can honestly tell you we’ve been using this shoe bin for shoe storage since we moved here almost 3 years ago. It’s in excellent condition and is used daily, all day long. The whole thing has held up without blemish and without breaking down or showing weakness in the structure. One day, I’d like to give it a little personal touch by changing out the hardware or adding some character. If I do, you know it’ll be blogged. 😉
Sadly, it doesn’t magically pick up shoes and socks like one would hope. I often find footwear abandoned in front of our Hemnes storage cabinet. No joke, the picture above was taken not long after I finished photographing for this post. I suppose her socks are in the vicinity… just not in the bin, lol.
In the professional world, I’m a nurse by trade. But, around our house, I’m known as Mommy to our young daughters. My two worlds collided and began shaping into a blog. Useful Beautiful Home represents the hours I’ve dedicated to managing my household as efficiently as possible. I offer you motivation to keep your home healthy, organized, and welcoming. My goal is to share what I’ve implemented in my home to inspire you with fresh ideas and to encourage you to keep up the good work in yours!
Leave a Reply