How to store your sandals so you can *actually* find them in the morning

While there are health benefits associated with going barefoot, you may at least need shoes to get you from surf school to the world’s most Instagram-friendly beaches and beyond this summer. Or, more specifically, you’ll need pedicure necessitating sandals to carry you through the season.

As you begin to pull them out from under your beds (or wherever else they’ve been hiding through the snowy, toe-covered seasons) you may find they take up far more square footage than seems appropriate given their skimpy composition. For help setting them straight and saving space in the process, I enlisted the expertise of Rachel Rosenthal, an organizing expert and founder of Rachel and Company. Below, find her tips for keeping your sandals well-organized and within reach (without having to trip over them in the process).

Keep reading for pro storage ideas that’ll help you easily rotate your warm-weather shoes for summer.

6 tips for storing your sandals like a beach-going boss this summer

1. First and foremost, Rosenthal suggests sort shoes by categories—flip flops, flat sandals, wedges, etc.—and then by color if you want to be super specific.

2. “Reserve priority placement in your closet for the shoes that you wear on an everyday basis,” Rosenthal advises. To make the most of your closet space, Rosenthal recommends using the back of the door to add pocket organizers or baskets attached to the door itself to store sandals. Or, she says, you can add storage to your clothing rod with a vertical hanging shoe organizer, or by using s-hooks (usually for purse storage) to loop through the sandal straps and keep them off of the floor.

3. Another way to add shoe storage areas into your home is to make use of vertical space, she says. “Add tension rods to available walls to give shoes a surface to land off of the floor,” she advises. “You can also see shoes better when they are lined up vertically in this way as opposed to in a ball on the floor.” 

4. Next, Rosenthal suggests keeping an open-top basket at your front door to collect your everyday sandals and let them breathe.

5. For shoes that aren’t used on an everyday basis, Rosenthal recommends using clear shoe boxes to store them in an orderly fashion while keeping them protected. “The boxes can be stacked and put on higher shelves and labeled with a chalk marker to identify the contents,” she adds.

6. If you end up using bins instead, Rosenthal recommends placing your shoes upright rather than stacking them. “Similar to clothing, when using deep containers (like bins) for storing items it can be all too easy for things to become buried when stacked on top of one another,” she says. “Instead of stacking shoes on top of each other in a bin, opt to store them toe-side down (or toe-side up!) so that you can easily access the pair that you need without having to dump out the contents of the bin.”

House still a mess? Check out these 5 Marie Kondo-approved organization hacks, or just get rid of this one thing in every room.