Last week, Ship Full O’ Pirates began a wonderful collection of advice for growing families. Today they are doing their second edition, sharing more wisdom and practical tips. My contribution for the week relates to organizing shoes.
A few weeks ago, I gave a talk at our MOPS group about how to find a place for everything (taken from this page of my other site.) I had a number of ladies come up to me over the last few weeks telling me that they have started doing their shoes the way I do, and that they love it. I thought it might be nice to share it here.
So, for all the moms out there who have ever spent the good part of a morning on a hunt for a single pair of matching shoes, this one is for you.
My philosophy in organizing the home is to make everything easy to put away, so that it is maintainable by everyone in the family. For shoes, this translates to saying ”no” to those neat and pretty shoe racks. Instead, I have placed a large, clear bin in everyone’s closet. When they put shoes away, they can simply toss them in the bin. Knowing that we do not always want to march up the steps whenever we take off our shoes, we put another container on the first floor that the whole family can toss shoes in temporarily.
This keeps our first priority of making it easy to put shoes away. Containers are available on every floor of the home. Tossing shoes in the container is much easier than tediously lining them up. When we need a pair of shoes, we may have to dig to the bottom of the bin, but we can usually find both shoes in less than a minute. Two minutes if we have to check the other bin. The shoes may not be all lined up, but they are contained in one spot, and they generally do not get scattered about…
Unless, of course, the baby decides to play “hide the shoes.” That’s one problem I haven’t found an answer to yet…
November 12, 2008 at 2:36 PM
You may laugh, but Alayna already has enough shoes to do this with. i actually have a bin in her room full of shoes. I must say of course i didn’t buy all these shoes, they have been handed down. Of course i love all of them, now only if her feet would grow a bit!
November 13, 2008 at 10:12 AM
We have the basket as soon as you walk in the door where we are training our children to put their shoes. It’s working very well now since their shoes are so little…we may take your advice of a bin in each closet when the shoes (and kids) get a little bigger! Thanks for the good idea!