Add Extra Storage without Damaging Your Doors

Thank you guys for all of the kind comments you’ve send me in the last couple of weeks about our newly organized coat closet! I’ve also received a question, from a few people about how we hung the shoe bags on the back of wood doors {the ones we are using for hats, scarf and glove storage} – so I thought I’d answer that question today for Five Minute Friday.

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There are lots of hanging shoe bag options on the market – ranging from plastic to mesh to fabric {this is the one I used in our coat closet}, but the one thing they pretty much all have in common is that they come with hooks that are intended to go over the top of your door.

These hooks work fine in some situations, but I really don’t love seeing the hooks on the front of the door. Beyond aesthetics, there are a few reasons the hooks may not be the best option for hanging shoe bags: (1) depending on how much clearance you have between the door and the door frame, the hooks may cause the door not to close properly; (2) the hooks move a bit from side to side each time you open and close the door, causing the ends of the hooks to scratch the finish on the front of the door; (3) if your doors are taller than average, the shoe bag may hang too high, making the upper pockets hard to reach for those who are short, like me.

I have a super simple solution that will allow you a shoe bag at any height you want, and to avoid damaging your doors at the same time… hang the shoe bags from ribbon tacked into the top edge of the door.

You’ll want to start by selecting a fairly thick ribbon, since it will be holding quite a bit of weight once the bags are full.

Tie the ribbon to one of the holes in the top of the shoe bag, triple knotting and pulling to make sure the knot is secure. Hold the shoe bag up to the door to determine the approximate length of ribbon you need for hanging, then add about a foot of extra before cutting the ribbon. Tie ribbon to each of the other holes in the top of the shoe bag, using the first as a guide to cut these ribbons to the same length.

You will be securing the ribbons to the top of the door frame using flat-head thumb tacks. Many thumb tacks have rounded tops, but for this to work, you need tacks with totally smooth flat tops, like these from Home Depot.

In order to ensure that the ribbon is held securely in place, and won’t tear under the weight of the bags, accordion fold the ribbon so that the tack goes through multiple layers.

Press the tack through the layers of ribbon, and then hammer the tack into the top of the door.

Once all the tacks are hammered into place, use scissors to trim off the tail of the ribbon, so that nothing is visible when the door is closed.

This simple ribbon and thumb tack method will hold your shoe bags securely in place, the three tiny holes that the tacks leave are in the top edge of the door where no one will ever see them if you later decide to take the shoe bags down. This is also the same way that I hang wreaths on our front doors for the holidays!

Hanging shoe bags are a great way to drastically increase the amount of storage space in your closet, and they can be used for just about anything!

If you missed all the details about our organized coat closet, be sure to pop over for lots of tips about using every inch of space!

Add Extra Storage without Damaging Your Doors

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