Shoes and coats - how and where does your family store theirs?

[Tobermory]

Inspired by a thread about utility rooms and the answers on their, I’ve been thinking...
We recently bought a house with a utility room. I’m v excited about have a whole room with my washing machine in. My plan was to hang coats and store shoes in there too. But all those shoes and coats take up so much blooomin space and maybe that utility room space would be better off used differently. The utility room links to the garage which is clean and dry, I’ve wondered whether I could utilise that space?

So my question is... how and where do you store your family coats and shoes. I don’t mean best coats and fancy shoes... just day to day ones. The two or three pairs that you wear during the week ?

Cupboard under the stairs. The tall bit has the coats with a shoe rack at the back for wrong season shoes. The sloping bit has two shoe racks and the hoover.

A lot of houses don’t have what might be described as dead space but which for me is completely essential - those in-between corners and spaces for where things can go that are not for a particular room. I also feel pretty strongly about needing a surface to put things when I come into the house. In my in-laws house (overseas in a hot country so not always coat weather to be fair) there is no designated space to put down keys or a bag or slip off shoes (not through lack of space - they’ve just never set one up) - they take everything into their bedroom and keep it there.

We have 4 coat hooks and Hemnes shoe storage in the hallway for the more regularly worn items, and in the tiny box room upstairs we have 3 clothing rails with coats, DH’s suit jackets, random things that won’t fit in our normal wardrobes and whatnot. Plus additional shoe boxes stored underneath the rails for our smart and occasion shoes. If anything hangs around in the hallway not being worn for more than a few days I whisk it away upstairs.

Placemarking this thread

We had an alcove about 2 foot deep and 3 ft wide. so we stuck doors on it. It a shoe / coats / bag wardrobe. I love it!

We have a small, square porch/hall with four doors (front door, downstairs loo, kitchen, dining room) & a large window. Along the one decent length bit of wall we have a 4x1 Ikea Kallax unit and the 2 DC, DH and I each have a cube for every day shoes. We have three sets of pegs above that, one for each DC and one for visitors. In a corner is a set of wicker drawers which contains hats & gloves as well as things like shin pads & gum shields for the DC. Balance in a wicker box on top of this are the DC's school bags. In the downstairs toilet we have a coat cupboard for mine & DH's coats.

2 rows of coat hooks (one above the other). Two shoe racks. Both in hall between main door and inner glass door. Inside hall has old school bureau with drawer each for scarves, hats and gloves

The Hemnes storage looks fab but needs fixing to the wall (I'm in rented so could be a problem). I wonder if I could do something with Command hooks ...

Thanks everyone for your answers to this age old question, it’s giving me lots of food for thought.

@Secondsop I competent agree about the putting down space. We are definitely a putting down family!

@normhonal

Loved your comment about female architects. I work in a architects practice, and find I’m constantly asking the males where the Hoover, ironing board, coats, shoes etc go? Plus how they cook a family meal in the kitchen, with no worktop space?

I know this isn’t the case with all males (before I’m critised) but from experience in the industry, I’m forever questioning this.

To answer the OP, mine go in the small utility, children’s coats are on low hooks in a storage cupboard door opposite, and I have a small ottoman for shoes. But most of the time they get left out, or hung on the bannister. When we move, I’m looking at building a cloak cupboard and utilitising the under stair.

I also agree re the female architects comment.
I am amazed at how many houses has such poor storage (especially after having lived in Scandinavia).
We struggle here with a motley collection of inadequate storage so I cant offer much adivce sorry.

Does you garage share a wall with the house? If so could you open up the wall put sliding doors in and put/build the rear part of a cupboard in the garage. My mum did this and it was amazing. She gained so much storage and it looked so sleek.

We put up a stud wall to divide off a bit of space as a coat cupboard. I hate having coats on display, it looks so messy. Shoes go in a bench that you sit on to put your shoes on.

depends what you want to pay.

Here, a sort of pigeonhole thing for shoes. It is actually a left-over winerack unit. Takes one pair of smallish or flat shoes per hole.

Also have a special shoe cabinet, it looks like shallow chest of drawers but each "drawer front" actually hinges down bringing a sort of shelf with it. A solid wood one is something like £300 and a flimsy laminated chipboard one maybe a hundred. You need a bench and if you can sit on the pigeonholes that's a good way to do it. If you have a porch put a bench or seat on it even if it is open to the weather, to sit on and take off muddy boots.

For coats, a row of hooks on a plank will hold a lot, plus one of those old fashioned bentwood hatstands next to the front door. It also holds umbrellas and hats. It sometimes falls over. If your house contains people of different sizes, you can have a high one over a low one.

For practicality and inelegance, at the Seal pools in Sydney zoo when I was shown round, they have long pegs of broomhandle rod, tilted slightly up, on a wall board, and you put your wellies on them to dry out.

p.s.

A hanging rail, with coat hangers on it, is much better for your clothes than coathooks, and they will dry better.

We have a large downstairs cloakroom cupboard and when we renovated a few years back I got it made wider and shallower and had it fitted out with shelves at the side and back so all hats/gloves/boots/sunscreen/ scarves/spare bags etc can also fit away neatly. In the winter we do leave winter boots on our small enclosed porch though rather than traipse snow through the hall.

I also don't like the look of coats on display. So true too about the architects. First one we had do plans for adding a downstairs loo and renovating our kitchen was conscious of the vintage of the house (1911 - not exactly Georgian splendour) and kept telling me what I should and shouldn't do. When I showed his plans to our contractor he said "Pallisers he's taken out your downstairs coat closet - you have three children and live in New England, that won't work".

Coats are on hooks in the hallway , with a kallax unit underneath (the 4 hole one) for shoes, theres 4 of us, so we have a box each.

We have plenty of space so anoraks and casual coats go under the stairs on 3 rows of hooks and formal coats are in a large cupboard in the hall with room for hats and scarves. Shoes are mostly upstairs but welly boots and hiking boots are in a big basket in the boot room/laundry. Shoes are in bedrooms.

We're a No Shoe House , so they get taken off on the porch and there's a shoe rack in there . (Bought in Costco, I got two )

There's a row of hooks in the hall (DH puts his coats there) the rest of us put our coats in the bedrooms.

@LurpakIsTheOnlyButter photo please.

Wall hooks in entrance hall for coats - generally 1 per family member with other coats (smart / seasonal etc.) hung in the owners wardrobe.

We have an Ikea Hemnes storage cabinet further down the hall which has 4 sections - the bottom two each contain a child's school book bag (fit perfectly) along with their daily homework etc. Top left has the children's school shoes in. Top right has children's hats and gloves [+ my umbrella].
Shoes are generally kept in their owners wardrobe.
We have one living room which we always remove shoes for and then the shoes typically get popped under the Hemnes unit.
Everything has a home so it's fairly easy to keep the hallway clutter free.

We keep our shoes in this shoe rank from ikea and it comes in different colours. Picture attached

We keep our coats in the under stairs cupboard

We normally keep the shoes we use a lot in the shoes rank and the rest of them goes under stairs cupboard

@kaydog I love your under stairs cupboard! I need something like that.