Close-Up: The Shoe Vault

Shoes seem to take hold of us and keep us hostage in our own home. We like to take our shoes off at the door and get them out of sight as soon as possible. Songhun and Jae have a great solution.

The deep drawers give instant access to even out of season footwear, and the door that makes the storage an instant secret is the best part. Even if you can't build-in custom shelving in your entryway, you might be able to fit in a kitchen cabinet and outfit it with roll-out shelves meant for pots and pans. Install more drawers than would ordinarily come with the cabinet and you will never trip over another shoe again.

Comments (8)

Oh Brilliant! I'd forgotten this...

It seems like more of the "long term away in the dressing room storage" rather than the entryway, or am I the only one with nosy friends that peek into cupboards?

I can just hear my mother telling me it is unseemly to have that many shoes near the door.

Oh, you made my day!

I had a dream a week ago about just such a solution, but couldn't quite describe it...and then here it is! I love those walls of shoes you see in posh master closets, but reality is less space and no need to see all the shoes, all the time. great, great, great!

And now that I see it, it would be good to store some shoes right at the door in a drawer like this-also leaving more shoe room back in the closet.

Oh, I remember this one, I love it! Got all inspired, priced the roll-out pantries at Ikea and realized no way can I afford it.

Laurie in an Asian home (like Songhun and Jae's, and mine) it is not unseemly to have so many shoes near the door, it's necessary.

However, having a lot of non-Asian friends, I've learned it's a good idea to keep my entryway shoe storage neat but visible, as a cue that this is a no-shoe house. I always look for that when I visit other homes for the first time.

The current entryway is a disaster, but only for a few more days. Soon, we'll be in the new house, where the front door opens directly into the living room - yuck. I think I'm going to use a bookshelf as a room divider to create a teensy foyer and store shoes. We'll see how that works.

Leaving shoes by the door also seems to be a big German thing. To my German expat husband one does not put shoes in one's clothes closet. One leaves them at the front door, preferably in a rack. But I am not willing to ruin my funky Arts and Crafts decor with something so prosaic and depressing as a cheaply designed shoe rack. I found a big primitive utility (bakers?) rack on wheels. It has shelves spaced just enough apart for shoes. It is full of nicks, chipped paint, old stenciling I can't make out, in a word, rustic banged-up character- much more interesting, and unexpected, than a console table. The husband is pleased to have 'alles in ordnung'.

i wish i had a place/space to build this.