Awhile back I shared with you my "secret" to appearing to have a super clean and organized home.

There is more. As embarrassing as it is.

Our mudroom looked pretty innocent.

Until you opened the doors....

No matter how hard I tried, we could not keep this closet clean and organized.

One of the main problems was the shoe situation. Shoes were stored where they landed after we kicked them off.

Unacceptable.

I found this shoe organizer at Lowe's for $12.

It was supposed to be easy to assemble.

Obviously 8 years of college did me no good in shoe storage assembly because this thing almost made me cry.

They forget to mention in the directions that there are "right (painted)" and "wrong (unpainted)" sides that are important to pay attention to when assembling so you don't end up with a nasty looking finished project.

(Yes, common sense would be handy here but not all of us are blessed with such skills.)

After about 45 minutes (for a project that should have take 15 minutes...max), I had a nice storage solution.

I then moved on to cleaning out the closet. This included taking everying out and moving items to their appropriate home. I threw a few things away. I then wiped the area down, moved everything back in the closet, and wah-lah.....