The long and the short of storing toddler shoes is that they're small enough to stash in small places but can also feel cluttered and chaotic. Many families use baskets or drawers to help, but inevitably you still end up searching for the one rogue shoe that seems to have mysteriously disappeared. Want to see how tension rods tamed this shoe storage?
We've been keeping an eye on Jules over at Pancakes and French Fries this month. She's been tackling one project on her organizational 'to do' list each day. Her latest installment is this simple drawer for her son's shoes. Adding inexpensive tension rods allows each shoe to rest at an angle and lets her see at a quick glance if a shoe is missing or out of place. She also added shelf paper to the bottom to dress it up a bit.
Find the details for this project onPancakes and French Fries.
(Images: Pancakes and French Fries)
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Love this; especially how it's pretty much instantly adjustable as the kid's shoes get bigger.
That's smart. Great idea.
Smart idea. I like this a lot.
I put my kids shoes in a BENNO, a BILLY-related CD Shelving Unit from IKEA - in germany they sell it in blue, red and other colors. It looks nice, needs only little space and actually we store 14 pairs of toddler and baby shoes in there. I love it!
I keep it simple--one pair of shoes for the kid. it's working for us so far, but then, my kid isn't a mud-stomping puddle jumper, so we don't really need to rotate shoes.
I'm confused. Why would a toddler need more than one pair of play shoes and maybe one pair of dress shoes? What I'm puzzling over is what to do with the outgrown pairs.
I don't think the contents of the drawer should be analyzed as Jules was nice enough to share this tip with the world.
There are two pairs of soccer shoes, some flip flops, slippers, and then a few pairs of regular shoes. Although any child could get by in life with one pair of shoes... what fun is that?
we are a hand me down family. we ended up with tons of shoes. so thats one way but when we out grow those and before a new batch comes in we have a pair of sneakers for the parks with lots of rocks or long walks a pair of sandles for super hot texas summers but nice enough for church, dress shoes for those church days that need to be super dressy and some flip flops, house shoes. were on a really tight budget and the entire drawer of shoes would add up to about thirty dollars.
i LOVE this idea ty for suggesting it...now if i could only get my little girl to leave them alone...or know how to put them away :D
Ahem. A 7 year old is hardly a toddler. Methinks someone just glanced at the original post when writing this one... ;)
thank you Mrs Mack! Half the point of the post was that dumping them all together worked FINE for the toddler. Now that he's seven (notice how much bigger the "After" shoes all are??) she's come up with her clever idea.
Which I will promptly steal for my own shoes.
Nice idea!
Should the drawer be reinforced first? I wonder if the strength of the tension could compromise the drawer after a while.
I have a feeling my daughter's drawers won't be deep enough, so perhaps a moot point.
This would work great in a wooden wine crate.