The Dollar Tree Kitchen Find That Belongs By Your Front Door

The snowy and rainy days of winter take their toll on your boots and shoes. And, if, after a day outside, you and yours usually leave them by the front door to keep them from tracking mud and water into the house, the snow and rain can take a toll on your floors, too – indirectly, anyway. However, a Dollar Tree Essentials plastic dish drying rack paired with an Essentials plastic dish pan is an effective, if somewhat unusual, solution to the water and mud mess that your shoes are bound to leave behind. You need only to place this by the front door and drop your boots inside the plastic dish drainer until all the water slides off the shoes and your footwear is dry again.

The dish rack is designed with a slotted bottom for the dishes and a side container that holds silverware. When you put your wet footwear in the dish drain rack, the water will drain through the bottom slits into the pan below, preventing the liquid from pooling around the shoes. The rack works in the same way as it would with your dishes, except the water is coming off your boots instead of your plates.

Your carpet or hardwood floors will thank you for this. An excess of water presents a potential mold and mildew issue on your carpet, and of course, there's the potential of a bad smell once the mold and mildew set in. The wet storm mess on your floor could also destroy the back of the carpet. Plus, all this excess moisture isn't kind to your hardwood floors, either. Staining and warping can result from exposure to excess water. Your Dollar Tree dish rack can mitigate the effects of the dampness on the floor.

To protect your floors, you've already taken to not wearing shoes inside the house, particularly when they're wet. However, there are a couple of things you can do to make this set-up an even better option to protect your floor. First, if it's possible, put the dish rack by a heater vent (if there's one beside the front door). This will make the shoes dry faster, and more to the point, this method won't ruin the shoes in the way that placing them in the sun will. To help the shoes keep their shape, remove the insoles and stuff the shoes or boots with some crumpled newspapers. This damp shoe hack pulls some of the moisture out of them and prevents them from warping. 

You can also prevent damage to your hardwood floor by laying something down by the front door. A floor mat is the most logical choice. It should catch any excess water while you're placing your wet shoes in the drain rack. The Dollar Tree carries Home Collection multi-purpose floor mats, which have a wider perimeter than the plastic dish rack. This gives you some extra coverage. As for the mat itself, it was designed to pull some of the water and mud off your shoes when you wipe your feet on it. This combination should give your floor double protection against your storm-dampened shoes.