(Post 139 of 263. Thanks again to those who participated in the Fundrazr. As I mentioned in the post announcing Bast’s passing from COVID, I thank everyone for your generous donations to the original Fundrazr campaign, which resulted in sponsored 263 posts. I will continue to honour the commitment to write those 263 posts, but I will not commit to more. The link above is to a new campaign to help Bast’s family.)
I’ve never been much of a housekeeper and I don’t think I worried about dust in my home a day in my life until I moved here. But here, dust will not be ignored. Mérida is a very dusty city — some blame the climate, some blame the lack of vegetation, some blame city maintenance. Whatever the reason, when you live to the open air like I do, dust will invade take over your house. But as if that wasn’t enough, add in the humidity and dust will mould and eat into your belongings (especially leather). A once-a-week visit from my house cleaner isn’t enough. You have to clean a lot (ideally once daily) here. The only way to make that task less onerous, especially in a house the size of mine, is to choose furniture with clean lines, to not have a lot of needless decorative items, and to keep what you can behind closed doors. I figured that out for my books and decorative items (glass-doored bookcases are great in this climate!), but it took me way too long to figure it out for my shoes!
This is where I’ve been keeping my shoes (well, sandals), most of these years.
Every time I want to wear a non-daily pair, I have to clean a layer of crud from it.
It finally occurred to me that I needed a shoe cabinet. The kind with the drawers that tilt out would take up the least space.
It still cracks me up that I lived in this house for YEARS before I noticed that the two light switch plates are different colours!
There wasn’t an abundance of choice for such a cabinet. I was hoping for dark brown to match my TV stand and armoires. It was about this time last year that I bought a cabinet for my kitchen from Elektra at a deep discount. I decided to try there and, to my surprise, found exactly what I wanted at a fraction of full price. At a quick glance, you could almost think it was part of a set with the TV stand.
What an improvement! But look at the front door. Oh my goodness. I’m off to go dust it!