Find the Perfect Shoe Rack Dimensions For Your Needs

Installing a shoe rock near a house’s entryway or closet could improve the overall tidiness and cleanliness of a home. It’s pretty easy to know what you need once you know how many shoes you will be storing and how much space is available. In this shoe rack dimensions guide, you’ll find the different types of footwear rack sizes and how to choose the right one for your home and bedroom closet.

Standard Size Of A Shoe Rack

A shoe rack is a versatile piece of furniture either bought in one solid piece or units that are easy to assemble for yourself at home. They keep all the pairs of shoes together to help everything stay tidy and organized. 

Shoe racks can be used anywhere you want them to, but they are often found in foyers, inside a closet, or in your home’s vestibule. They are also readily available in a home’s mudroom to dry wet shoes to keep everything inside your home tidy and dirt-free. 

The standard size of a shoe rack is made to fit in spaces that are 18″, 24″ or 30″ wide.

Rack Height for Shoes

Every footgear rack is unique to each other, meaning that one type can easily have different dimensions to the next. There are also various styles and types, making setting a standard size difficult across brands. 

The height of your shoe rack will depend solely on how many shelves of shoes you want to stack. There are two-story shoe racks with a height of 17 inches or 43 centimeters, while three-story racks made with a combination of wood beds and metal frames usually have heights of 33 inches or 84 centimeters. 

Rack Depth For Footwear

Ideally, a shoe rack’s depth should consider and follow the size of a person’s shoe. However, if you are looking for standard ones, the typical shoe rack shelf depth of 13 inches or 33 centimeters will be enough for every user in the household, from kids to adults.

If you are looking to store shoe boxes on your shelving, this depth might work, too, although you can always go for bigger-sized ones. 

Shoe Spacing On A Rack

Shoe spacing in your racks will ultimately depend on the width. Most shoe racks are available from the smallest 18 inches, or 46 centimeters size, to some that have a width of 30 inches or 76 centimeters. 

For a typical footwear shelf, the space that a single pair of adult shoes will occupy is 12 inches or 30 centimeters. Of course, this space will significantly be lowered when kids’ shoes are considered. 

Boot Shelf Height

If you are searching for the perfect footwear racks that would fit your boots, it would depend on what boots you want to organize.

Are they tall boots knee or above the knee height, or are your boots simply ankle or rain boots? If they are the latter, traditional shoe racks with a shelving height of 12 inches or 30 centimeters or less will suffice. 

For taller boots, however, you have the option of utilizing the top shelf or premade or look for shoe racks that have specialized 24 inches or 61 centimeters bottoms to be slotted easily in your closet designs. 

High Heel Rack

The most important thing about heel storage, especially if you are looking to store those gorgeous high heels of yours, is accessibility and visibility. There are stackable storage units that you could build from the floor up for maximum organization inside your closet. 

For some of these units, the height of the heel stacks is usually 8 inches or 20 centimeters. Enough to fit high heels with 6 inches heels. At the same time, their 30 square meters of space will be more than enough space to fit two of your high heels. 

Shoe Cubby Size

If shoe spacing is one of the problems you want to address for your storage situation, the most effective way to store your shoes is to keep them in the individualized cube compartment, and a shoe cubby will allow that. 

The overall average size of the cubby shoe rack has dimensions of 32 inches or 81 centimeters in height, a width of 27 inches or 69 centimeters, and a depth of 13 inches or 33 centimeters.

In contrast, the individual cubes are 12 inches 30 centimeters wide, 8 inches or 20 centimeters in depth, and heights of 5 inches or 13 centimeters. 

How Big Should a Shoe Shelf Be?

The size of the footwear shelf you need depends on the location where you install it. The first thing you need to do is measure the space available. If the racks are used in an entryway or a foyer, you do not want something big that would occupy the entire space available. 

For a mudroom, there are multi-purpose shoe racks with a bench as a top to make it easier for someone to shrug off their outerwear and snow-covered boots during wintertime. These types of shelves are usually 2-story ones with one shelf covered to make the bench add-on possible. 

How High Should a Shoe Shelf Be?

How high your footwear racks will be depends on your preference and the space available where you will be using them. A surefire to ensure that it will fit the said space is by measuring the area available. Do this by measuring both the height and the width of the room by the wall. 

For closets, you would want the shoe racks to be as concealed as possible, with exceptions if you have a wall full of shoes and are willing to pay for a whole customized shelving unit for them.

For mudrooms and footwear racks in your entryway, the more discreet, the better, so a regular 12 or 24 inches shoe rack height would be ideal for these locations. 

How Wide is a Pair of Shoes?

The width of one pair of shoes from side to side will depend on what type we are discussing. However, for women’s shoes, the width is generally 8 inches or 20 centimeters, while that size will turn up a couple or an inch higher for men’s shoes at 9 to 10 inches or 23 to 25 centimeters. 

This would mean that for a shoe rack with a width of 24 to 32 inches or 61 to 81 centimeters, a single could fit roughly three to four pairs of women’s shoes and 2 to 3 pairs of men’s shoes. 

How to Choose The Right Shoe Rack? 

One of the consensus experts agrees that we probably have too many shoes we want to store in a single rack. A great idea before buying one is sorting through your shoes and choosing to weed out the excess. Eventually, you might have fewer pairs of shoes to store. 

Knowing the number of shoes is essential before buying a storage product. This will help you know the type of storage that will hold all your available shoes easily. 

The best storage will hold more shoes but at the same time take less floor space available in the foyer or inside your closet. It will display all your shoes for easy accessibility and protect them from dust and pets at the same time.

Every household shoe rack will be different, but here are a few things to consider when beginning your search. 

Freestanding Racks

Freestanding shoe racks are probably the most portable and highly customizable designs since some models are easily stackable.

These are great for small floor spaces, making them a fit for most closet spaces and organizing shoes in mudrooms. Place them below hanging coats and jackets, and you’re good to go. 

Cubbies

If you are looking for individual compartments for each pair, a cubby type of shoe rack is the best choice. They are great for displaying your shoes, especially in a walk-in closet. 

The only downside to a cubby is most of them have predetermined shelves, making them less versatile for bigger shoes like boots or high-top sneakers. However, free space on top of the bigger shoes in your closet is limited. See our guide to walk-in closet dimensions here.

Shoe Cabinets 

If you are not a fan of clutter, especially in open spaces like your foyer, the safest bet for footwear storage for your home is shoe cabinets. These cabinets are built longer than they are wider and are designed with deep drawers, and will pivot open and close. 

Over the Door Racks

A way to utilize wall space for footwear storage if you have little to no floor space is by using over the door racks or hanging shoe racks. These are also great for keeping your shoes away from dogs and kids, and another plus is they are also generally inexpensive. 

Aside from the shoe racks listed above, there are others, such as rolling racks, shoe trees, and even under-bed pull-in storage.

For limited closet space, the last thing to do is split up storage for every pair of sandals, heels or boots. Maybe your kid’s shoes can be kept in their rooms while everyday pairs are kept in a rack by the foyer. 

Visit our closet shoe storage ideas for more related content.