Picture the scene – you walk through the front door and you're greeted with a sea of shoes scattered across the hallway floor. This was my daily reality for way too long until we bought this hanging Argos shoe storage rack a few months ago. I hereby declare it a clutter-busting gamechanger.
It blows my mind how many pairs of shoes one family of four can own, and trying to find a storage solution that can absorb them all has been a real challenge. We've tried so many promising shoe storage ideas but none of them have been quite right. In our old house we had huge baskets full of shoes, but the hallway in my current home is really narrow, so anything that takes up floor space just isn't an option.
We have a small understairs cupboard, and I tried popping a floorstanding shoe rack in there, but the space is too tight to allow for easy access, and everyone ended up chucking their shoes into the cupboard rather than putting them away on the rack. The result? A mountain of shoes on the floor of the cupboard that tumbled out every time you opened the door.
This rack hangs over your door with adjustable hooks, with additional fixings to the door itself. The rack says it holds up to 25 pairs of shoes but I think 20 pairs is a more realistic number.
With limited floor space, I needed to look elsewhere, and two internal doors – one to the understairs cupboard and the other to the downstairs loo – offered the most potential for road testing a vertical solution. I looked at various over-door hanging storage but nothing seemed sturdy enough until I found these hanging shelves at Argos. With decent reviews, I measured up and ordered one to give it a try.
Putting the shelving together was straightforward (if a little fiddly) and once it was fixed to the door I was impressed at how solid it felt. It screws into the door at various points, which is great because it means it's held securely in place. It holds around 20 pairs of shoes – two pairs on each shelf – and because it's so easy to access when you open the door it's been a success story when it comes to persuading my messy husband and two teenage kids to actually use it.
I was so impressed with the first one that I bought a second for the downstairs loo, and we can now comfortably store all the family's footwear. No more rummaging through the cupboard trying to find missing shoes when you're in a rush to get out of the door. I've also spotted this hanging shoe rack on Amazon which is a cheaper option, although it doesn't look as sturdy as the Argos shoe storage rack, and hangs over the top of the door rather than fixing to it.
This shelving rack has been the best answer I've found for storing shoes in our tight hallway, but there are a couple of drawbacks that are worth highlighting. While it works well on our understairs cupboard door and definitely helps to organise the hallway cupboard, it's not quite as great on the downstairs loo. The view of all the shoes isn't the most stylish when you're in that room! There is also a tendency to knock the shoes off the shelves when you walk in and out of this door (it's quite a tight corner).
The last caveat is that whilst it works brilliantly for adult and teenage shoes, I'm not sure it would be quite so suited to smaller kids' footwear, as they may not be long enough to sit solidly on the shelving bars (maybe hold off until they're a bit older?)
All in all, it's a win for me, and makes keeping the hallway clear just that little bit easier.
