Tackling the Entryway Closet and Shoe Shelves

Somehow all of my main floor closets have now gotten involved… So you guys all know I’m taking the house back to how I designed it originally ten years ago. I’m now using the room I designed to be an office: as an office. And the room I designed to be a guest bedroom: as a guest bedroom. But before I could design my guest bedroom I had to empty it out entirely as I’d been using the closet in there as my tool bench complete with LOTS of shelving. (Fortunately I had an actual room for my tools.) Taking all that shelving down left me with leftover lumber and a lot of heavy duty shelf brackets which made me think of my entryway closet.

Years ago I put up the top shelf and rods in here and repurposed an old book shelf into a shoe shelf. With the shelf in the center though all of my hanging went to either side of it which hasn’t been exactly ideal…

With my rearranging of rooms I now have a place for that book shelf for more of its intended use in my new office.

(It will definitely be getting a makeover at some point… I’ve been really wanting to try wallpapering the back of a shelf for awhile now and this one will be super easy to do because the shelves come out! The biggest hurdle will be actually picking out a wallpaper – there are so many options!)

Yes, I have a lot of shoes and its because I’m frugal and just never get rid of them. I have a pair of Sketchers that I’ve had since I was 11… I’m 40. Yeah it might finally be time to let them go lol.

My guest bedroom closet and this closet are doing a bit of exchanging. This closet will be getting the heavy duty brackets that were in the other closet and the other closet got the closet rods from in here. Oh and not to mention my office closet will be getting the book shelf that was in here!

I wanted a solid rod from end to end and was trying to figure out how to get all ten feet of it in my little Honda and us all home safe… and that was only IF my little town even sells a rod that long.

Well, at no one’s surprise, Amazon to the rescue again.

I’m impressed with how sturdy it is too!

With that problem solved it was time to build some shoe shelves.

I measured my tallest boot and put the bottom shelf at 18 inches high. (That way all my wet winter boots will be on the mat on the floor. This is the mat and it’s great.)

I put the the top shelf 9 inches above that.

First I measured and made level marks and then I installed two rows of those heavy duty brackets on every stud across the entire back wall of the closet. Then I ran out to my garage where I just so happen to have a whole pile of rough sawn 1x6x12s from my brother’s sawmill.

These boards haven’t been planed so they’re actual 1x6x12s and they’re not really smooth but my shoes don’t need smooth so I didn’t bother sanding them either.

Using two for each shelf I ended with a depth of 12 inches.

Fortunately I did myself a favor by securing the top one first!

With 10 feet I didn’t even really need two shelves… If you include the floor I now have thirty feet of storage space for my shoes… Turns out I didn’t need to get rid of any of them after all! Of course I’m going to be using these for more than storing shoes so they’ll be awesome to have.

You can see my boots fit easily underneath and all my other shoes fit between the shelves. I love how they’re floating

I would have just built a regular shelf but I had those brackets so I figured, why not? And dang how I love that there are no supports taking up space and getting in the way of storage.

Not to mention: this took me no time at all compared to building a stand alone shoe shelf.

I can’t believe how much bigger this closet feels now, I have so much room for coats and shoes its amazing! It might not be “pretty” but this level of organizing makes my little heart happy. And this has definitely now bettered my every day routine. (It really is the little things!)