Shoe rack on the wall

On one of the living room spring cleaning posts I mentioned that I will be making a shoe rack near the door to the terrace. At first I tried to find U-shaped piece of metal from the factory area at work, to create something like this, but I had no luck. I discarded that idea and thought that I should make something out of wood since I have experience working with wood but not with metal. I also liked the shoe rack where pairs of feet are formed from wire. I like that the rack and that the shoes take up so little horizontal space. And then I found this shoe storage item that I thought was the ugliest thing I've ever seen, but yet I think it looks very functional and versatile.

And then I thought of combining those two. I made a cardboard model from my own foot and I copied it on a piece of plywood. I flipped the model around every other time so I was able to make three pairs of feet on the plywood. I used plywood because the layers of wood are in 90 degrees angle against each other, which means that both directions in the plywood are equally strong.

I cut the excess material off with a jigsaw. Then I assembled the rack from three pieces and painted a white base coat. Once the paint was dry I tried out my shoes on the rack. The places on the rack felt too tight and the shoes didn't slip on well. I think what had happened is that because I used a cardboard model that was much thinner than the plywood that the shoes slipped on that very well but not on the plywood because it is much thicker.

Then I redraw the model, I made it smaller and transferred the model on the plywood and then cut again with the jigsaw. I also used the Dremel to sand the edges and sanded the gap between the toes a bit bigger.

After I had tried a shoe on it I returned to the painting. I painted the areas that were now left unfinished and then painted one layer with furniture paint.

On the back of the rack I had drilled before the assembly six holes for the hooks. I attached the hooks with small screws. After that I measured the gap between them and the height where I wanted to place the rack and drilled two screw holes on the wall in the living room. Then I just hung the rack from the screws.

And there it is a shoe rack for three pairs of shoes. I think it's pretty cool, but if I would do it again I would not leave such a big gap between the wall and the rack, not sure if the support pieces on the sides could be similar as in here then, don't know... Anyway I like it, the shoes are near the terrace door and the door can be opened and closed without the shoes being on the way. Excellent.