Plan for wrangling family winter boots?

October 25, 2019 1:23 PM

We are approaching the season of Too Many Boots. They don't fit in regular shoe-cubby storage, and they are frequently too dirty/wet to pile in bins. Anybody have a great scheme for keeping a family's worth of oddly-sized snow and street boots tidy, organized and accessible for day-to-day wear?

I guess the ideal would probably be to dry each pair out in a boot tray, then stow it tidily away in its own shoebox with a nice boot-tree in the shank until it's needed again.

With kids, this protocol has zero chance of ever being followed, so does anybody have more casual kick-em-off, slip-em-on-type organization solutions that still work with the odd sizes and relatively more delicate uppers? Thanks!

posted by Bardolph to Home & Garden (7 answers total)

Do you have a garage, shed, mudroom, laundry room? If so boot pegs for floor or wall are the BEST thing ever. We even have a few heated ones. The boots can drip-dry with a mat underneath if needed.
1, 2, 3
These can obviously also be hung in a hallway or whatever, they're great-looking.
posted by the webmistress at 1:30 PM on October 25, 2019 [2 favorites]

Make bigger shoe cubbies.
posted by amtho at 2:25 PM on October 25, 2019 [2 favorites]

Tie the boot laces together and hang the boots from hooks (with a drip pan beneath them).
posted by Iris Gambol at 2:33 PM on October 25, 2019 [1 favorite]

Boot dryers are awesome. We keep boots either on the dryer or in a big pile on boot trays by the front door.
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:45 PM on October 25, 2019 [2 favorites]

I have a sort of low hall bookcase with doors that my shoes go in - because the shelves are adjustable I leave a lot of height at the bottom for boots, and it would be easy to add a tray for them to dry on. Close the bookcase door and all the messy boots are hidden.

We don't have any sort of mud room or anything though, if we did I'd get those boot pegs.
posted by stillnocturnal at 2:47 PM on October 25, 2019 [1 favorite]

Get some clamps at the hardware store. Attach the loop part of a hanger if you want to hang them on a rod. Boots stay organized and stand up when clamped, making the boot tray less messy. The boot rods look like a good solution.
posted by theora55 at 7:03 AM on October 26, 2019

We made a boot rack kinda like this, but we made it wider front-to-back and we used used PVC instead of dowels. Having to place ones boots on the rack encourages people to use the boot scraper just outside and eliminates disputes about whether boots/shoes are properly stowed. We got the materials from a local re-cycling store and spent less than $15.

If we're bored some weekend this winter, we may add some piping and a fan to make our own boot dryer.
posted by at at 7:05 AM on October 26, 2019 [1 favorite]