Shoe Crates and the Shoe Problem

While I have always been crafty and despite the fact that my own father, Grandpa, makes furniture, I have always been afraid of woodworking myself.  I have helped sand wood, glue wood, clamp pieces together, screw things, nail things, saw things.  You would think I can't be afraid of wood working.  I guess I was afraid of failure, afraid that I didn't have the necessary tools to actually accomplish my ideas or that I would not be able to do it without my Dad's help.  And let me tell you, we have fairly different ascetics and ideas on how things should be done.

Well, thanks to Ana White I am no longer afraid.  Around Christmas time last year I found this brag post on Ana's site based on her step by step plans.  It was an answer to a prayer: what to do with all the shoes? I have 2 boys and a husband.  I am the girl, so I should have more shoes, right?  Not so.

My husband is German.  So like most Germans we leave our shoes at the door to minimize the dirt that is tracked into the house. (We do a lot of things like the Germans...) We used to have 2 of these very useful shoe wracks from IKEA, but we just had too many shoes.



It doesn't look as bad as it did, but I never cleaned under these guys, because it would cause a shoe avalanche that I just didn't want to clean up.

So, last Christmas I embarked on my very first wood working adventure with Grandpa, and 2 personalized shoe crates were born. They even stack.



How did we do it?

We followed the measurements and cuts on Ana's site:

Cut List

2 – 1×12 @ 11 1/2″
2 – 1×6 @ 18″ (bottom, adjust width as desired)
6 – 1×4 @ 18″ (sides, adjust width as desired)

Since Grandpa has a nail gun (sigh), we used that and wood glue to put it all together. The project got sanded and because the poplar is so beautiful with its natural wood tones we sealed it with a polyurethane clear coat.  My Dad, ahem, Grandpa, painted the names on for me since my children required my attention.  Not my personal style, but I never would have managed it, so, 'Thank you, Grandpa.' 

Now I can roll them out of the way and vacuum up all the dirt that my men drag in (and they make dirt) and roll them right back into place.  This Christmas a gift to me will be my very own shoe crate, and I will preemptively make one for our youngest for his one pair of shoes.  I will post a step by step of that process when I get to it.

'Til next time.

Kelley