Shoes On... or Off?

This will probably seem like a silly question.  There, fair warning.  I'm a totally random type of person.

Brandon comes from a "shoes in the house" family.  I come from a "shoes left at the door" family.  What a predicament!  I have gotten lazier as the years go by... But I recently made a very friendly sign to hang on our garage door that states: "DON'T BE LAZY! Take your shoes OFF!" to remind us to do so! Usually, I find that I just forget because I'm so used to waltzing into the house and straight into my closet to change my clothes! Our house was brand new, two years ago when we bought it.  TWO YEARS! Wow, that snuck up on me... Anyway, the carpet definitely looks older than that! We walk through our laundry room which leads to a hallway to the main part of the house on one side and then our master bedroom on the other side.  Well, the majority of our house is carpet, which isn't favored by most these days, but I actually prefer.  However, our carpet is builder grade carpet and is not wearing so well. We are not going to replace the carpet any time soon... so we need to preserve it!  So, I have two questions...

What kind of storage system do you use (if you do) in your laundry room/mud room/garage to store shoes?  Right now I just use a wicker basket but it really isn't the best solution.

How do you politely ask guests to remove their shoes?  I can't help but notice when people don't take their shoes off... they may as well be wearing big glowing green alien shoes because they stand out so much to me!!! I don't want to be rude, I just want to keep my carpets nice! Our weather out here tends to be wet... which equals mud... ick! Even if its not muddy, I just don't want people's dirty shoes on my carpets OR my furniture!!!

So... that was random.  But any advice would be welcome!!! :0)