boots are a problem, bcs the stuff you usually can buy for shoes won't actually hold them. And I actually think that HIGHER shelves are better than on the floor. We think somehow that because we wear shoes near the ground, they should be STORED near the ground. But I found, w/ my shoe cabinet that I made for myself, that having them higher up was easier--I wasn't bending over to pick them up and then AGAIN to put them on. How big is your closet? Can you devote a vertical 1/4 or 1/2 to shoes & boots? or, can you have people keep their SHOES in their bedroom, and only their snowboots in the closet? Stacks and Stacks has a huge collection of organizers. Here's one that has a boots compartment, which would be less bending, bcs you could grab the boots by their tops. But it would be nice to have this taller to accommodate more. You *could* just get a basic bookcase of some narrow size that will fit in there, and buy some extra shelves so you can space them very closely together in the places where you want shoes. And, you could have a "tall boots" section and a "short boots" section and an "even shorter shoes" section or three. The shelves would have an advantage that you could put baskets on them to hold mittens, etc. (though those could also go on the back of the door in pockets). Or spare tote bags, or whatever else you thought you'd need. Here is a link that might be useful: Stacks and Stacks, search on

I ditch the boxes and put the shoes in a set of cloth shoe pockets. But I don't have much in the way of storage space. If I had space, I'd put them in little clear cubbies, so I didn't have to fiddle with the box in order to get the shoe out. (Cubbyholes are my absolute favorite storage solution, for "organized-ness"--though not necessarily the best when you need to keep things completely dust-free, though they do cut down on dust a lot. Pockets are simply vertical cubbies. After cubbies is drawers. Boxes w/ lids are way down there, at least for anything I want to access very often.)

I have a shoe storage cabinet in my bedroom. It is basically a book shelf. Mine is 14 inches wide and it holds my husbands size 11 shoes as well as my own. Before I had it built I measured the biggest pair of shoes then measured from the heel up and added 1 inch to see how far apart to make the shelves. Some of my shelves are 6 inches from the top of the shelf to the top of the next shelf, giving my about 5 1/2 space between the shelves. These hold my husbands shoes and my heels. I have 2 shelves like this and the other 3 are an inch smaller in space. It holds 15 pairs of shoes--actually I have about 20 because sandals I stack one on top of the other I have it covered with a cloth cover I made, but it would be an easy matter to add doors with european hinges. If you want to make it narrower you could slant the shelves and add a cleat to catch the heels of the shoes.

I grew up in a small town in Ohio. Our drive was not paved, we put the ashes from the furnace on the drive in the winter. We also burned leaves on the drive way. Our chicken coop was not abandoned, no chickens; but it was used as dad's workshop and storage for garden things like strawberry baskets and bushel baskets for the pears and apples. Along with tools and fertilizers. I loved that place. We had a large veggie garden and had one deep freezer devoted to frozen veggies and a fruit cellar for canned items (pickles and pie filling). When products were in season, the phone would ring. one of the neighbors who 'ordering' corn or apples or berries or whatever was in season, and my sister and I would use our little red wagon to deliver the produce and collect the money. I don't know if that qualified as my first job. Once each autumn we split a cow with neighbors, we got about a side of beef. That went into the other deep freezer. That one was special because it also held our ice cream stash. The neighbors immediately north of us had been friendly with our family for many years. Using the back door, we never knocked, but walked right in. However, if using the front door, we were polite and knocked and waited. Jim