apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I toss all my 2-year-old daughter's shoes into a small basket by the door. It's sort of shallow and wide, so she can find the ones she wants to wear easily. Our shoes get similar treatment, except that we use our coat closet as our shoe basket.

Wow, our son only has two pairs of shoes, and that has always been plenty, and until he turned 18 months, he only had one pair. We put them in a small basket on the closet floor, so he can get them himself when he wants to go out. He also decided that he was responsible for his own socks (he loves opening dresser drawers).

I stored both my children's baby shoes lined up on the top of a bookcase right inside their door for a couple of reasons: easy to grab as I left, out of reach of babies who hide things, and so cute looking-always made me smile.

Now that they are bigger, the shoes are on the lowest shelves where they can put them on themselves. My daughter has named it the shoe house, and always puts hers to sleep at night.

We have a storage bench by our front door, and I have baskets inside for everyone's shoes. It works great!

My daughter only had two pairs of shoes until she turned 3

;-)

T has soft-soled shoes that all get squashed into one of the lime green canvas drawers in his 9-cube shelf. Since he still doesn't walk, we don't always put shoes on him :-O

We have a cubbie for each child (4 kids under 8) in the tiny hall closet, plus there is a hanging shoe bag on each bedroom closet door, which also is handy for storing gloves, swim goggles, card games, soccer shin guards, ballet slippers, etc...I can't say it's perfect though, I am almost always searching for someone's shoes as we leave the door.

Our biggest challenge now that most of our kids are in school is dealing with backpacks, school papers, library books, coats, gloves, boots, sports uniforms, etc....I was considering buying this http://www.furniture-4kids.com/coatloc4sec.html
but it is not very attractive for the foyer, and I can't afford the expensive Pottery Barn version (which is too big for our space anyway). My husband and I sketched out a plan, and a carpenter friend said he will make us something that fits the craftsman woodwork in our entry for less than half the price of the Pottery Barn unit....plus it will match our craftsman bungalow woodwork. I just hope we get it finished by the time school starts.