I previously had a large number of shoe boxes on a sagging closet shelf. I complained about my lack of closet space here. The  shoes were hard to reach and I couldn’t fit even one more box into the space.  That’s when I decided to clear it out to make room for other things in the closet.  Consequently, the shoes sat on the dresser at the foot of our bed for about 4 months or so…..

I saw some ideas for shoe storage in Ikea Billy bookcases both over at the Purse Blog on their Purse Blog Forum, and also over at the I am Style-ish blog.  Since we also needed somewhere to store the bf’s shoes, the 11″ deep Billy bookcase just wouldn’t do.  We ended up getting the Ikea Besta bookcase instead, which, at 15.75″ deep, is deep enough to hold the bf’s shoes, some other storage containers and my bags. We got one 47.25″ wide one as well as a one 23 5/8″ one – just wide enough for the spot where they are supposed to go.  We haven’t gotten any doors yet, but we’re going to get the Besta Vara doors. They aren’t quite as nice looking as the many door options the Billy series has, but they will suffice.  We plan to get some decorative knobs to spice them up.

After lots of inventorying and planning, I determined we needed 21 total shelves.  The narrower one came with 4 and the wider with 8, so we needed to purchase 9 extra shelves.

I am still working on the bf’s side – he’s got quite a few shoes and other things that need to be sorted out.