Picking the Perfect Shoe Storage Cabinet

A shoe storage cabinet is one of the best pieces of furniture that you can buy for your home, not only do they look great they also help to keep shoes out of the way and more importantly easy to find. There are plenty of websites showing you shoe storage cabinets for sale, but it seems that there are very few showing you information on how to choose the best shoe storage cabinet for your needs… queue the LiveIn|LiveOut team. Here we have produces a definitive guide to choosing the best shoe storage that you can afford.

How many shoes do you need to store?

This is the first question that you really do need to ask yourself? There is no point to buying a shoe storage cabinet that can’t even store the amount of shoes that you own. When buying a shoe cabinet you want to be able to store ALL of the shoes that you own and also have a few space spare just in case you see that must have pair of shoes. Many manufacturers will state the capacity of their cabinets but what you really need to check is the small print as more often than not they will estimate the number of shoes that a cabinet can hold based on an average shoe size. If you happen have bigger than average feet than you can except the shoe cabinet to hold less shoes than the manufacturer states.

How much and what type of space do you have for a shoe storage cabinet?

There is always a trade off between what size shoe storage you need and the space that you have available to actually put a cabinet. Although shoes storage cabinets are generally rather slim (less than 12”) some people simply do not have the room. If you find yourself in this situation then you may need to opt for a different solution such as a shoe rack that could fit in that space at the bottom of your wardrobe. The great thing about many shoe storage solutions is that they have a very small footprint (if you’ll excuse the pun) but they can be quite tall so they can store a large number of shoes.

Type of Opening

There tends to be two main types of shoe storage cabinet available on the market in terms of how you actually get in to it. The most popular type is the ‘drawer’ that is hinged at the bottom so when you pull the handle it pivots toward you and you are presented with the heels of the shoes. The second type of access comes in the form of a regular cupboard or wardrobe door which is hinged at the side. For many people the hinged at the bottom option for access is a far better solution because it requires far less space to actually open the door to get access to your shoes. Having a large side hinged door will require quite a large hallway for you to have to door open and be able to squeeze past. If you don’t have the luxury of a grand entrance hall this can get quite frustrating particularly when you have guests over or there are a number of you in the hall way.

Multifunctional Shoe Storage Cabinets

There are some shoe cabinets on the market which are multi functional, for example they have shoe storage cabinet at the bottom with a sliding door top component which you can keep other bits and bobs in like dog leads or general outdoor accessories such as scarves and hats. If you have the luxury of space and do not have many pairs of shoes then these are great pieces of furniture.

A shoe cabinet that is only 4’ tall you will find ends up becoming multifunctional on it’s own accord. The top surface of the shoe cabinet is at a great height for you to keep keys, the house phone or even a nice welcoming bunch of flowers. Being at the entrance way to your home it is sure to get a lot of use so make sure that the top surface is made from a durable material, A beech finish shoe storage cabinet is more than likely going to be constructed from a laminate and this is a great material for household functional furniture to be made from,

Floor or Wall?

A large proportion of shoe cabinets will be placed on the floor, but they should all however be secured to the wall to prevent them toppling over. There are few storage solutions that do fit to the wall at a height that will suit your needs. If you think that this might be the option you are looking for then I would suggest a white shoe storage cabinet to be fixed to the wall as it is less visually imposing than a darker colored version.

If you’ve managed to get this far down the article then you are all ready to go an buy yourself a great shoe storage cabinet – go shop!