Growing up in Montana, my mother enforced a strict household regulation: footwear was required constantly.
Should I acquire a sliver while walking across the closet floors:
Her response was, “You ought to have been wearing your shoes!”
If I bumped my toe against a chair leg:
She would say, “You should have been wearing your shoes!”
Wearing shoes at all times was the established norm.
I cannot confirm if this practice was common across all American households at that time, but it was certainly ours.
Later, I found love and married someone from Canada.
In Canada (eh?), the custom is to remove shoes upon entering the home!
This completely astonished the farm girl from Montana; I imagined only Japan held such a custom.
It seems the architect of this house plan was also unfamiliar with the shoes-off-at-the-door tradition.
However, this entrance area possesses numerous appealing features:
Its door is only one suitable paint shade away from looking spectacular,
and bright natural light pours in through the tall window above it.
There is simply one drawback to the space:
Its dimensions are precisely the size of a postage stamp.
I doubt it was truly intended to accommodate shoe storage by the entrance. We tried repeatedly and ended up tripping over shoe piles until I discovered a fix:
You will be surprised by this clever little stand…
{Did you anticipate this?}
It consists of the slim shelf hutches from an old desk we discarded.
It sounds odd, I realize, but it functions adequately for now!:)
P.S.: For more ideas regarding entryways, please review our prior entryway transformation. That difficult area nearly overwhelmed me, but after 6 (indeed SIX) paint color attempts, I finally settled on a look I adored.
P.P.S.: My mother eventually embraced our Canadian custom of removing shoes at the door. She wished to implement this new tradition in her residence…I am uncertain if it materialized.;)
