Shoe nirvana

As I mentioned in my last post, September has been a month of spending.

I already talked about the silverware. It's nice to use grownup silverware. Moments like these make my upcoming milestone birthday a little easier to accept.

In addition to the silverware, I also bought a new shoe armoire. I have discussed our shoe issues in the past. B and I own quite a few pairs of shoes between us. Mine fit nicely into little (ok, not that little) plastic shoe boxes from The Container Store and live on the top shelf in my closet. The remaining pairs--the ones that get more frequent use--hang from a shoe rack on the back of the door of our coat closet.

B's shoes are a bit bigger than mine. They don't fit into my plastic shoe boxes, and they are too big for the door shoe rack. We use a metal wire rack that now lives in our spare bedroom and is devoted exclusively to his sneakers, shoes, and boots. Unfortunately, they don't all fit, and the chaos is just too much for me.

I have a very low tolerance for clutter, especially of the shoe variety.

While cruising the Hammacher Schlemmer site--the store that sold the shoe box that I originally intended to buy--I discovered a fabulous bigger shoe box that was on sale (how convenient!).

I proposed the purchase to B--we generally consult on non-necessary purchases--and his feelings were neutral. He isn't as bothered by the shoe mess as I am, but he understands that it bothers me and was open to buying the shoe armoire. I didn't need any more convincing.

Thanks to Retail Me Not, I didn't have to pay shipping on what turned out to be a very heavy item - over 70 pounds. The armoire did not arrive fully assembled, but we put it together without needing any tools, and you'd never know when looking at it that it arrived in a box, Ikea-style.

The box holds 25 pairs of shoes, and B is kindly sharing the space with me. He has 15 slots and I'm taking the remaining 10. We can finally repurpose (or perhaps donate) the metal rack, and the back-of-the-door shoe rack can also probably go away.

We have achieved shoe harmony.