Reclaim Your Under the Stairs Closet from Khaos

INSIDE: SEE HOW YOU CAN RECLAIM YOUR UNDER THE STAIRS CLOSET FROM KHAOS AND FEEL LIKE YOUR ICKY CLOSET ISN’T SO ICKY ANYMORE

Everyone has that spot in their house that if a visitor opened the door they would be mortified. Right!!? Well, that spot is our shoe & storage closet. Time to reclaim our icky shoe closet!

Unfortunately, this closet is on the first floor near the kitchen, under the stairs. Basically in the middle of everything. The saving grace – it has a door!!!!

I am going to show you this closet….don’t be scared. And DON’T JUDGE US!!!!

Kris put the shelf in for me a few years ago. It was a great solution to the storage issues we had. It took some serious math…thank god he is a math genius!!!

Current situation:

***UPDATE 12/2023 – While this system worked for a short time, we slowly began to run out of room again. Scroll to the end to see what it looks like now

On the top shelf we have my grandmothers china. She gave that to us before she passed away and we just haven’t decided on a piece of furniture to display it. We also house the ‘Elf on a shelf’ here, it’s a place they’ll (the kids) never find her!!! Extra light bulbs are up there too.

Second shelf currently holds Kris’s hats, random craft supplies held in cute little boxes, and my old office decorations. I don’t have an office or desk right now 🥺 so these stay at home until I finish my masters and start my new career 👩🏻‍⚕️

Third shelf has the kids school memory bins and some picture frames that need to be hung…when we find the right spot.

Fourth shelf has shoes, floor cleaning solution, and my tripod.

Fifth one has nothing on it. Probably because no one wants to bend down that far.

And obviously, the floor has a TON of shoes. Too many shoes.

Across from the storage shelves we have a cleaning tool hanger. Works perfect!

Regardless of what I think, this is not effective for my family. No one puts their shoes away. I throw unfinished projects in there. It doesn’t make any sense.

Purge

So….I take a deep breath and pull everything out.

I seriously don’t know what I just did. It was the biggest mess I have ever created!

Everyone has about 15 pairs of shoes in there. The worst culprit – my husband. ‘But I wear them all!’ Not true. I found a pair of boots he hasn’t worn in a year in this closet. 🤦🏻‍♀️

To lessen the shoe load in this icky closet, I had each person pick the shoes the wanted down here. The rest of the shoes made their way to the owner’s closet.

I threw away projects that I was never going to finish and actually pulled out 2 projects that were almost done….AND finished them!!!

Clean

I wiped down all the shelves with my favorite – Mrs. Meyers.

Next, I swept the floor…..PHEW! That was not pretty.

Organize

The first thing we have to tackle are all the things that have OTHER homes. Cleaning supplies do NOT belong in here, so into the laundry room they go, with the other cleaning supplies.

Now, we can put like things together back in….and here we are –

I added an additional plastic bin for my festive decorating supplies. It made sense to put my door signs, console table flowers, and runner are in here when not in use, easy access and close proximity were factors in that decision.

I turned the school memory boxes in a different direction to make room for the above mentioned box. The cute gray boxes on the second shelf have winter hats, my hot glue guns (I need all 3 of them close by at all times!!!), and shoe sprays. If you don’t know about sprays that turn into powders to eliminate odors….find here!!!

Again, small change that made a tremendous impact on my organized life.

We can all find our desired shoes, not battle the rest of the shoes on the floor and nothing unnecessary in this VERY important closet!!!!

***As promised – updated version – I moved the school memory boxes to my new craft room. Purchased shoe bins so everyone’s shoes could be coraled. I moved my festive decorations to the attic. And sadly – we retired the Elf on a Shelf – the end of an era, and finally freedom from hiding her and coming up with this we haven’t done for the past 12 years!!!! Good lord!

My next project – paint the new to me cabinet so I can finally display my Grandmother’s china….this is why winter is great around here, nothing else to do….but paint furniture…sorry honey!

Happy Organizing,