***Keep Your Shoes Organized with These Tips

Shoes may put the finishing touch on your outfit, but they should not be the cause for chaos in your closet. It is very easy for shoes to take over your closet, and even your home. Remember, for every person, there are at least two shoes. It is very easy to kick off your shoes and leave them where they lay, but that is the first step into cluttering your home or closet with shoes.

The best tip you may ever get about keeping your shoes organized is to put them away. That means designating a certain place in your home or closet for your shoes. You can determine where the best place for your shoes is by thinking about what the shoes are for.

A great way to choose the best spot for your shoes is to think about it strategically. For example, if you do a lot of gardening or yard work, you may want to keep the shoes you wear on a shoe rack in the garage, possibly by the gardening tools. This way, you will always know where your shoes are and you won’t track dirt, mud, and grass into the house from the yard.

Beyond your gardening shoes, you may have several other pairs to deal with, which most likely are kept in your closet with the rest of your clothes. One of the first things you should do when attempting to organize your shoes is to take all of your shoes (yes ALL of them) out of the closet and line them up. Sort through your shoes and get rid of any shoes that you don’t wear. You should donate all the shoes you don’t wear to charity. Worn out or old shoes you don’t wear anymore may be the nicest shoes in the world to someone who is less fortunate.

Once you have sorted through your shoes and decided which pairs to keep, your next step is to think about how often you wear each pair. The shoes you wear daily or most frequently should be the most accessible in your closet. You can even think about organizing your shoes by season as well. Keep all the winter boots in one area and summer sandals in another. If you want to get crazy, try sorting shoes by color.

After you have sorted all of your shoes, next you will need to place them in your closet in an orderly fashion. Keeping shoes on the floor of your closet is not recommended, doing this makes it way too easy to just kick them off, and back onto the floor. Doing this for a week will lead to the same closet clutter we are trying to avoid. When your shoes have a designated place, it is just easier for you to find your way around your closet.

A great way to keep your shoes organized, once you have sorted them, is to use stackable shoe cabinets or shoe racks. These organizational products allow you to place shoes neatly within a concentrated area. Using these items to house your shoes will guarantee that you will never search high and low for that pair of black strappy sandals again.

If you have a smaller closet with a lot less floor space, hanging shoe racks are very handy. Most hanging shoe racks will hold up to ten pairs of shoes and can hang easily from the closet bar. There are even hanging shoe racks for the back of the closet door, or even your bedroom door. A shoe tower is also a good alte
ative to the hanging rack or stackable cabinet.

If you have plenty of closet space, think about using shelf dividers to keep your shoes in order. The shelf dividers will also make it possible for you to have shoes on one part of the shelf while storing other items, such as sweaters or jeans on another shelf. Placing your shoes on shelves will also make them very accessible and visible.

Clear, plastic shoe boxes are an excellent way to keep your shoes organized within your closet. These simple storage boxes are also a wonderful way to preserve your shoes and save money from having to purchase replacement pairs that have been exposed to the elements of your closet.

As long as you follow these simple tips to organizing your shoe collection you should never have to trip over those high heels when reaching for that shirt in the morning. It will also help ease the frustration of finding that perfect pair of shoes to complement your outfit for that date or that job interview. Just remember, once you have gone through all the trouble of organizing your shoes, simply putting them back in their proper place when not wearing them will help you keep them that way! It’s just like what Mom said when you were five, “When you’re finished with them put them back where you found them!”