This shoe rack is designed to fit together in pieces, allowing you to build up the stairs to make use of a space that's usually wasted. You can add as many pieces as you want and make it go up as many stairs as you like. In theory, you could have this cover a whole staircase. You could also fit pieces together so it goes on a flat surface rather than stairs.

It has been designed to fit the stairs in my house, which I assume is a standard stair case, however I have added instructions at the end to modify the size if you need to. You may wish to print one section and decide if its the correct size for you before you go all out.

For one module, you will need to print a base and the two back pillars and two front pillars, and another base to go on top. The top will then become the base for the next module.

All files are individually saved, but the file called “shoe rack” has one plate with a base and one plate with two sets of front and back pillars, to make use of most of the plate. Just continually print the pieces you need individually.

The bases slot together using puzzle-like pieces. When you print the base, it requires support as the sticky out puzzle bit needs to be 1mm off of the plate to allow for the pieces to slot together properly and hold their shape when on the stairs. This means that when you've printed it, you will need to use a knife to remove the layer of support from under the puzzle bits only. It doesn't look like much, but it will stop everything fitting together properly if you don't remove these 2 pieces.

The pillars also require support to make sure the little connections print properly and fit together properly. Make sure you remove all support material before assembly for it to fit flush. I've use tree supports and the come off easily with a pair of pliers.

Infill is set quite high at 20% to ensure that it is strong enough to hold the weight of the shoes once assembled. Feel free to bring this down if you only plan to store lightweight children's shoes.

My shoes are a size UK8 (EU42) and they stick out. It was designed this way as to not take over too much of the staircase. If your shoes are much bigger, you could consider increasing the depth of the shoe rack, or just place it an inch or two from the wall so the shoes can hang out of both sides of the shoe rack.

You can see in the picture that shoes will most likely have to overlap each other, but this is due to the depth of each stair, there's not much I can do about that.

Instructions for scaling

The shoe rack as I have designed it:

• The Going of my staircase is 215mm
• The Rise of my staircase is 205mm

Increasing the Rise

To increase or decrease the Rise to fit your own staircase, you will need to increase the length of the back and front supports. They are currently 205mm tall not including the connections, 209mm including the bottom connections and the base plate that they fit into. To calculate the scale for an increase/decrease you will need to measure the Rise of your stairs, in millimetres, call this number R.

Take your R number and divide it by 205. This is your scale. Multiply the length of the back and front pieces by this number to make them longer or shorter as required.

The increase/decrease in the length of the connections should be negligible, so you shouldn’t need to increase the base at all to deal with this. Don’t increase the whole thing by the scale (i.e. not a uniform scale increase/decrease), just the length, or the connecting pieces will become too wide and won’t fit in the holes.

Increasing the Going

If you need to increase the Going to fit the depth of your staircase, firstly measure your Going in millimetres. Call this number G.

Take your G number and divide it by 215. This is your scale. Multiply the width of the base plate by this scale, which is the distance from the edges that look like puzzle pieces. You will also need to multiply the width of the back and front pieces to make them a little chunkier so that the connectors still fit in the holes.

Examples:

A staircase has Rise of 220mm and a Going of 210mm.

R = 220

R ÷ 205 = 1.073

Multiply the length of the back and front pieces by 1.073

G = 210

G ÷ 215 = 0.977

Multiply the width of the base plate by 0.977, as well as the width of the front and back pieces by 0.977