An Organized Shoe In

There is an exact moment in time when you fall in love with “the shoe”. Each time you hold it or wear, if you wear, it, that memory comes flooding back and fills you with a sense of that moment. The moment you saw “the shoe” on someone else’s foot, found the courage to follow the wearer and asked “where did you get that shoe?” and then made every effort until you found and purchased a pair. It’s called stalking and years could have gone by before that shoe was yours. The time you suddenly, without explanation, found your face pressed against a shoe store window breathing heavy with lust for a pair of shoes that called your name and spent next months food budget to have them. Or when you walked around with not 1, but 3, pictures of the same shoe despite having committed to memory the color, line and stitching details of said shoe. Owning “the shoe” becomes a quest. A quest that occurs over and over again because, like a cheating spouse, your excuse is you couldn’t help your self. You got carried away by the feelings “the shoe” inspired you, not the shoe itself, and though you had to have that shoe, you still love each and every pair you own.

Owning “the shoe” hasn’t been one for me of late. I blame it on my efforts to walk a minimum of 10,000 steps a day. A beautiful pair of 3 inch heels, platform or not, aren’t going to help me achieve that goal. I have also made a conscious effort to cull through and wear each and every pair of shoes I own, even if it’s around the house while cleaning. It is a process, I must admit, that has been on-going for nearly 2 years.

When I first started to cull I spent weeks trying to figure out how to store my shoes so that I had both visual and phyiscal access to the collection. Originally each pair lovingly housed themselves in clear plastic shoe boxes from the Container Store. ( http://www.containerstore.com/browse/Product.jhtml?CATID=154&PRODID=61479 )
I even went as far as attaching their photos to the outside of the box. This worked for a while but the shoe collection outgrew the system and I ended forgetting about the “off season” shoes stored in the closet. How embarrassing, and yes wasteful, is it to find that you have 4 pairs of natural leather wooden platform sandals that are so close in style that no one, but a shoe lover, could tell the difference? I could have created an on line inventory of the my shoes, keeping photos, purchase dates and repair needs but for me that would have just been a whole different level of crazy, besides, I have other things that require such organizational effort. I digress. I shelved (heehee) the box storage concept and lined the shoes up pair by pair but I lost precious real estate by not being able to stack them atop each other. That is when the IKEA catalog arrived in the mail and the hunt for affordable shoe storage began.

Unless you live under a rock, everyone knows IKEA has arrived in Brooklyn. There is even a free shuttle bus that picks up passengers at various points on route to the store. I swear it’s like going to Atlantic City. I am a fan of IKEA. They have everything you could want and because their price points are pretty economical there is no guilt in replacing things when the time comes. I like to mix and blend practical items from the store with what I own or have found along the way. Again I digress. With shoe count in hand off to IKEA I went.

There were a number of options but the size of the wall I would use and my budget narrowed down the choices.

I ended up purchasing the IKEA FRAN SHOE RACKS(http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/70101053).

They screw into the wall and I was able to fit 4 pairs on each level by placing the shoes heel to toe. The only negative is that the rack only comes in black and red. I bought a total of 6 black units and at 8 pair each…you do the math

Hello, my name is Simone and I’m a shoeaholic...