Etiquette of taking shoes off at the door for guests?

[GYoIsReallyHavingABaby]

Hello
I've just got new hall and dining room wood floor (its bamboo so reasonably susceptible to damage) that was a lot of money to us so we'd like to keep nice for as long as possible.

The front door opens onto hall and goes through to dining room so we take our shoes off in the porch the before the front door.

Does anyone else have a "no shoes rule" and how do you deal with it with guests?

I feel awful asking people to take off shoes on way in... I'd always do it in other people's houses out of respect/ politness and I'd make sure I didnt make host feel awkward about it but a few guests over xmas have made me feel really bad for asking!

Ditto takver - I can't remember any friends houses where people don't take their shoes off. Most of the time we go to each others houses to relax so sometimes will take slippers or wear big fluffy socks. Maybe I just have friendships where we don't feel the need to dress up and wear outfit matching shoes to enjoy ourselves.

Edam - no I don't hoover everytime my guests have gone but have you ever cleaned your wooden floor and then later that same day had a spillage on the floor and been astonished at the dirt transferred to the cloth that can only have come from the bottom of people's shoes?

Besides the contaminants thing has pretty much sold the argument for me.

Maybe its a country versus town thing? I can't imagine anyone being offended at being asked to take their shoes off here, by the time they got to our doorway even if they started out clean they would be muddy anyway.

Half my friends and I are clearly filthy and weird.

Maybe you just live somewhere less muddy?

My MiL always brings slippers with her to my house and every time I say... 'oh just leave your shoes on'. I have a ceramic tiled floor that is freezing to the bare footed.

I think she keeps doing the slipper-bringing thing in the hope that I will do the same at her house.

I wonder if this is a town and country thing? Living in a semirural location, the whole notion of shoes off seems entirely barking. As it would to all our friends and neighbours.

Happy new year chaps!

Yes, will go with that.

We are definitely country, can't get much more cefn wlad than here, my logic was the opposite, that it is more likely to be shoes off in the country as there is more mud.

Yes, of course my shoes go with my outfit. Today I am mostly wearing slippers to go with my dressing gown. (Hangover/slob emoticon required)

I think it´s a country-city divide.

In the country (especially in a village, where you would walk to someone´s house through a muddy field, I´d take my shoes (or wellies!) off.

If someone asks me to take my shoes off in a city or town, I think they are being precious.

It´s a mud thing, isn´t it?

Oh Riven, don't you realise that most women are completrely OBSESSED with shoes? I think I'm quite lax/unbothered, I only wear practical shoes, and yet I probably have about 15 pairs in total, probably nothing on most women.

Clothes, too, the "Sales don't impress me this year" thread, are mostly about people buying things they don't actually in the slightest bit need to buy.

Riven, I have approx 50 pairs of shoes/sandals/boots. And I am quite, erm moderate, I feel (or at least this is what I tell DH)

LOL I'm missing the make-up bit of the X chromasome, Riven.

Handbags now - handbags are lurvely - there was a thread on handbag porn - positively lubricious ...

But.....what would have happened to Cinderella if she would have had to take off her shoes outside the door?????

Thinking about this issue, it is similar really to people having plastic covers over their furniture....Just a wee bit odd. (unless you live in muddy country lane)

You and me both, Riven.
Once I said something apologetic to DH about wanting to buy something not dirt cheap (clothes-related). DH said "Buy whatever you want" and then related how he'd spent a pub lunch hearing shocking stories about how much the girlfriends of his workmates typically spent on fashion frivolties (like shoes and handbags). That was kind of a wake-up for me.

I have a pair of cycling sandals (SPDs), thinking about them makes me go weak at the knees I just love them so much!! That's the closest I can get to understanding the common woman's love affair with shoes.

Did you know that when women's shoe sales start to return to normal levels, that's one of the most reliable signs that a recession is ending?! Make of it what you will.

Have been chuckling at this thread but haven't managed to read it all. My personal view is that it's bonkers to expect people to remove their shoes as a matter of course, and an unnecessary faff when people go through an elaborate show-removal ritual at the front door. (Unless perhaps someone has just walked through a muddy field, when you'd hope they would be aware of it.)

But does anyone do what my mother does? She is VERY big on people removing their shoes the second they cross the threshold, in order to preserve the pristine carpet. So she keeps a basket beside the front door (I swear I'm not making this up) for guests to put their shoes in - so that the offending items (shoes? guests?) aren't touching any bit of the carpet at any point.

Rofl Wispabarsareback, uhm, some of the posters on this thread do that too.

In answer to the OP as I haven't read all of this, I guess it depends on what the host is wearing on their feet. If the hosts are in socks or slippers, as a guest I'd follow suit.

IME hosts with a 'no shoe' policy often make a point of showing you where outdoor shoes are kept, as soon as you walk in the front door. Can you do that?

The other day my dh who had taken his shoes off managed to get mud all over the carpet from the bottom of his jeans - I give up! To be quite honest I don't mind shoes in the house but with two boys and a messy husband it just tends to save me hastle to get them to take shoes off at the front door. I think its polite to offer to remove your shoes at someone else's house especially if they obviously do, and I would always get my boys to remove their shoes - its too embarrassing to be responsible for trailing mud, or worse, over a nice clean carpet.

I have a pair of shoes to go with every single outfit I have, sometimes the shoes cross outfits but ermm yes I have many shoes, its the one flaw in an otherwise blemishless character....I also have a handbag thing a clothes thing, and have lately developed a perfume thing......OK I am thoroughly flawed, still it's my own overdraft.

In our house we don't wear shoes, it's just not comfortable, I never ask guests to remove shoes, however most do anyway as there's a shoe rack in the hallway and everyone is in bare feet and the whole place is carpetted (so one does not get cold feet).

I can't understand why people get so very upset about it tho, you either remove shoes or not, and as a guest one (well I do) takes ones cue from the host/ess. I'd hate to be walking around in shoes if the host/ess clearly did not approve or I ask if I'm not sure. I don't care what I would do at home, as a guest I do as the host/ess would want....but obviously that's just me.