Condo Blues: How to Make an Easy DIY Floor To Ceiling Shoe Rack Organizer

Monday, March 27, 2017

How to Make an Easy DIY Floor To Ceiling Shoe Rack Organizer

The over the door shoe rack similar to this one on the closet door and stackable shoe rack similar to this one worked for awhile. Well actually, it worked for Husband’s shoes rather than mine. My shoes are so small they would often slip through the split shelves and end up in a pile on the floor. (I am including affiliate links in this post for your convenience.)

And after years of wear and tear, there came a time when even Gorilla Tape wouldn’t put our dilapidated shelves back together again. Which, frankly, I only put them back together every time they fell apart because Husband and I have grand plans to make this closet a cedar closet and pimped out with a custom closet organizer system.

Someday.

That keeps getting pushed down the punch list because blah, blah, yadda, yadda.

Does this happen to you or am I the only one?

After two months of shoe clutter barfing out of the closet and not being able to shut the door I had enough. This project doesn’t have to be my perfect dream of custom wall to wall floor to ceiling shoe storage, it just needs to be done. Now.

Shoe Closet Before. I am not proud of this.


 
After measuring, measuring, and measuring again, I bought two Home Basics Free-Standing Shoe Racks (a 10 tier and a 4 tier) because they have solid shelves and planed to stack one on top of the other to make floor to ceiling shoe shelves. The shelves won’t run the width of the closet as I want but it doesn’t need to be perfect, the job needs to be done. Now. 
 
The shoe rack goes together link tinker toys which made stacking the small shoe organizer on top of the large one a breeze – I just kept adding parts until I reached the ceiling. It was easy to put together with the help of a few select taps of a rubber mallet to encourage the pieces to stay together.  Although I would be careful because the plastic connectors can crack easily. I reinforced those areas with a ring of Ducklings Mini Duck Tape to be safe.


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I hoped I could install the shelves through the slots in the closet shelf but they where off by just a few centimeters too much for the metal rods to stay seated in the plastic connectors. I solved the problem by cutting the end of the offending slots free with my Dremel and cutting wheel so they had just enough give to move a tetch and accommodate the closet support rods.


The current closet shelf should keep the shoe rack from tipping forward under the weight of the shoes stored in it. Given how many times the old shoe rack tipped over,  I didn’t take any chances, and secured the back of the shoe rack to the wall with large cup hooks.


We have more shoes post purge than the Wall of Shoes can hold so I reluctantly added an over the door pocket shoe organizer similar to this one to our shoe closet.


Since I had to pull everything out of the closet to install my fantastic wall of shoe shelves, I figured it was high time I reorganized our costume storage!


 I supervised the whole process and made sure Lisa finished the job. She's such a slacker!

 The vertical supports in the closet rod really cut into the amount of hanging garments that fit neatly on the rod and frankly there are clothes that barely stay on a hanger like my Elizabethan bodices or really don’t need to hang like peasant clothes (they look better wrinkled anyway.)


1. I did a quick sort of clothing into four piles:
  • Costume pieces to hang – I put them back in the closet as I sorted. Easy!
  •  Costume pieces to fold and store in plastic storage tubs with locking lids. I am going with plastic tubs because while cardboard boxes would be greener solution, cardboard can attract moths and other pests that damage expensive costumes - never the cheap stuff. Why is that?
  •  Props, hats, wigs, and accessories
2. I did a second detailed sort of separating the jumble of historical clothing, accessories, and costumes, folding them and putting them in separate storage tubs as I went.


 To keep the accessories organized,  I labeled and stored like with like (gloves, belts, etc.) in zipper freezer bags since I rarely store things in them in my freezer.

3. Finally I sorted the props, hats, and wigs.
  • I stored my wigs and weaves on their wig stands/packaging in a separate tub.
  •  Elizabethan hats stayed in their hatbox, the rest of the costume hats went into a bigger storage tub.
  •  I stored the historical props and other costume props in separate tubs I already had. I labeled and stored like with like (leis,pouches, jester props) in zipper freezer bags to keep these boxes from becoming a tangled mess.

 My work here is done.

Finally I loaded all of the labeled tubs into the closet and wondered why haven’t we separated our stuff into two major categories before now? It is makes life so much simpler!


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1 comment :

Unknown said...

The supervisor is TOO CUTE! Thanks for the idea and the encouraging voice.

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