What We Do Wednesdays: All the Shoes

There are 24 feet in our family. Currently everyone, except Peter, has at least 1 pair of “school” shoes and 1 pair of church shoes. (I intentionally got rid of or put in a storage bin all other pairs of shoes accumulated.) Flip flops are lingering from summer for some and boot weather is coming soon and all that together is a lot of shoes!

We’ve gone through many systems trying to find something that works to keep them all organized and this will be one area I think will likely be evolving to suit our needs. But right now it’s working pretty well.

We have a 9 cube storage organizer sitting in our mud room on a little bench built into the wall. Originally everyone had their own bin for their cube to put their 2 or 3 pairs of shoes and jacket. Mom and dad have a bin on top along with a bin for hats. In theory, it was a way to make it look cute and organized. In reality, when cleaning up the mudroom, shoes were thrown in any old bin so when they were looking for their shoes all the bins ended up on the floor with shoes scattered everywhere. Maybe if I was more diligent about making them put their shoes away each night, or putting them away properly while cleaning, or had less kids, this would’ve worked great. But it just wasn’t working for us anymore.

In the spring, I made the decision to eliminate the bins so they could see where their shoes actually were. It’s not as aesthetically pleasing, but there’s less mess on the floor so I’m calling it a win! As for the jackets, they’ve taken over the hat bin and when we need them daily they will just be put in the cube without looking nice.

Now please don’t think my children always have their shoes put away; you’d be dreaming and so would I! On a normal day when cleaning, shoes are quickly put wherever the cleaning child wants them to go, so the organization aspect goes out the window. And there are still kids hunting around the house for shoes before we leave to go somewhere; but since they all have their own space for their shoes and know where they should go, it takes most of the chaos out of it.

And that’s how we keep and (kind of) organize our shoes. I’d love to hear what you do to keep track of your shoes in your home!