House Shoes: A Story

You might not remember these pastel green sneakers, because I never wore them for an OOTD, but they were one of the shoes purchased in my broken-toe shoe-shopping spree of 2015. In the years since then, despite never finding them blog-worthy, I wore them often enough that they eventually started looking dingy and unfit to be seen in public. They still had plenty of life left in them, though, so I kept them around to see if they might be candidates for a resuscitation of some sort.

It was earlier this year when I realized they could serve a different purpose as house shoes—sort of like slippers, but...shoes!

From October to May every year, I have an almost constant need for foot-warming technology when I'm at home. My hardwood floors are great when it comes to cleaning and maintenance, but one of their downsides is they're not exactly warm. Sometimes socks are sufficient, but when you live in a house with a very sloppy drinker (a.k.a a dog), you will be constantly stepping in tiny puddles, and I don't recommend doing that with socks on unless you want to be cold and wet for the next hour. Plus, when it's cold enough inside, even socks don't provide enough insulation.

I've tried various garments for this purpose, but (with the exception of some felted wool slippers with a leather sole that I bought at a market in Australia and therefore could not replace when they wore out), all of them have eventually failed the test of daily wear.

The bunny slippers were too small (of course! I ordered them from China!) and hot, the knit booties with the fur lining flopped around too much when I walked, the unicorn slippers had permeable soles, the cozy sheep socks were always dangling too far off the ends of my toes.

The idea to use my old green Keds in lieu of slippers came only after staring at them countless times over the winter, wondering when I was going to figure out what to do with them. But when it came, it turned out to be a good idea. These shoes slide on, so I don't have to fiddle with laces; they have a thin flexible sole, so they're comfortable in a wide range of positions; and the sole is rubber, meaning dog droplets are no object!

I planned to give them a brief trial run and then get on with the aforementioned resuscitation, but somehow laziness won out, and I wore them as house shoes for about a month without ever making them look presentable (my standards of dress when no one can see me are shockingly low!).

Then the coronavirus arrived on our shores (I feel like I'm going to be saying that in every blog post for a while). The entire world population has been advised to stay home as much as possible. My employer has instituted work-from-home for everyone whose job permits, so I'm teleworking every day now. At least until April 10, but who knows what will happen after that? If I'm going to be home almost 24/7 for the foreseeable future, I really have to step up my house clothes game. And that includes my house shoes.

So on the fifth day of my self-semi-quarantine, I decided to give them a dye job. I would tell you about it, but somehow this story has run away with me, and it has gotten far too long to tack a DIY onto the end. So you'll have to wait, and bate your breath, for the thrilling conclusion. Will my house shoes go from drab to fab? Or will their transformation be just plain bad? Find out in the next installment of The Unfashionista blog!