I used to go barefoot indoors (or socks in cold weather) but once I hit 50 something I had plantar fasciitis and needed support, now at 60 something I need cushioning. The fat pads on the bottom of our feet thin with age. I walk pretty much 9 hours a day in my work. When I get home I need some cushion.
Plus one on the slippers in hotel rooms. I have some danskin ballerina style that I won’t leave home without. (No, they aren’t cushioned, but I’m only wearing them for a short while.).
We don’t allow shoes in the house either. We wear slippers.
I can’t fathom how a no-shoes policy could work at our house. Both H and I work out of the home. His office is downstairs, mine is on the main living level. We both go in and out literally dozens of times a day. Dog walking, letting out the chickens, checking the mail, getting packages, taking lunch on the upper deck in the yard, answering a few emails on the front deck. Playing with the dog on the front lawn. A little bit of gardening. This doesn’t even address the actual ‘leaving for the real world’ events. We’d be taking shoes on and off all day long.
Heck, I’m lucky if I can get H to brush the sawdust off off his shirt before coming upstairs. The house is always neat and tidy. Deep cleaned every two weeks by the house keeper. I mop and vacuum in-between. We have all hardwood flooring that is 17 years old and now could use a refinishing.
I’m lucky that I don’t know people who wear stilettos.
If we do go to the beach, or I take the dog on a hike then we wear shoes appropriate to that particular activity. Then the shoes and any affected clothing get striped down in the mud room.
I wish I had a mudroom. We have a small house and a garage too small to drive a car into. So the main entry is the front door. I keep a boot tray by the front door and we have a Waterhog mat just inside the front door. But when you come in with wet or snowed on coats, boots and gloves it can get a little overwhelming.
Bingo, @doschicos. Shoe removal is about wear and tear on the floors, not germs.
Same here for many years, but still no shoes. We each keep a pair of rubber slip-ons outside the front and patio doors that we just walk in and out of as we leave or enter. We also have a shoe rack in the garage next to the laundry/mud room entry door where we keep our “good” shoes for putting on/taking off when we get in or out of the car to go someplace.
This thread is reminding me of something else. I was entering 10th grade when the new high school opened in our town. The new school was mostly carpeted (open concept, a lot of classes taught sitting on the carpeted floor), and it only took a few weeks before we students decided to just leave our shoes/boots in our lockers and wear footies all day to preserve the carpets. The principal got onboard with this and soon the school bookstore was sellling all kinds of spirit socks and footies. Not everyone participated, but most did. Good times.
Same here. Shoes that slip on easily are left by the door. 95% of the shoes in our house reside full-time in the garage on a large shelving unit.