Where do you keep it all?–Part 2–Seasonal Sundays

WELCOME!!!

Yeah, it’s finally here! Where do you keep it all? That’s the question

that I am constantly asked. So what could be  a more appropriate way

to celebrate my SECOND Blog-aversary than to share where I keep it

all. Last year, on my FIRST blog-aversary I shared where I stored a lot

of my dishes. Click HERE to see last year’s celebration.

Since last year I shared a lot of my dish storage, I decided that this

year I would focus on where I keep my linens. When I redid my

basement several years ago, I had this closet built for my tablecloths.

You’re seeing the left side of the closet. The doors slide and there is an

equal amount of space on the right. I had the closet double hung with

permanent rods to accommodate more tablecloths.

What you can’t see, and what I tried really hard to photograph, but

had no luck is that the closet is two deep. So it’s not only double

hung – top and bottom. It is double front and back. It’s a bit difficult

to get to the ones in the back, but it works.

I organize the tablecloths similarly to how I organize all of my

tablescaping items, by color. This is the silver, gold, cream area.

Here we have blacks, dark blue, browns, and then into the prints.

The prints flow from pastel patterns to blues to reds. In the back, the

part I couldn’t effectively photograph are the solids: yellows, pinks,

reds, greens, blues, etc.

Now, as you flip through these photos, you no doubt see these little

tags on each hanger.

Well, this little compulsive trait has a story. When I was growing up

my Mom loved to entertain. No great surprise there. She kept her

tablecloths (which are now part of my collection) hung in her

bedroom closet. I have many memories of picking out a cloth with her,

bringing it downstairs and invariably not having it fit – depending

upon how many leaves were in the table. So back up to her room we’d

go to rehang the inappropriately sized cloth and try again.

Even as a child, this drove me crazy. Because of this, each and

everyone of my tablecloths have been measured and labeled. I

frequently forget the exact size I need for my dining room table

depending upon how many leaves are in the table. I have the

measurements of the actual size of the table and each leaf, along with

the preferred tablecloth size on a little sheet of paper taped on the

inside of a kitchen cabinet.

I give only a minor description of the cloth as the tag actually stays on

the hanger. The hanger sits empty in the closet while the cloth is in

use and while it’s being laundered. I also indicate how many

matching napkins a given cloth has. The matching napkins hang

with the cloth. I have a LOT of tablecloths, a great number of which I

inherited so putting this system into place was no easy task, but one

that was well worth it. I keep a little box of the tags and a pen right

near the closet so that new cloths can be appropriately labeled. It’s

real easy to do with a new cloth as the measurement is right on the

packaging.

As I mentioned above, if a tablecloth has matching napkins, those

napkins are hung with the tablecloth, however I have MANY napkins

that are not matches to a tablecloth. For a long time I floundered with

the best way to store them – in drawers, in stacks, etc. What I finally

settled on and really seems to work is to have them in plastic storage

boxes. I chose a plastic box whose end could accommodate a napkin

folded in four and laying flat against that end.

The napkins are grouped by color.

I had so many white, cream, off white and ecru napkins, that I went

so far as to make dividers out of heavy cardboard, labeled the top of

the divider, and inserted them in the box, akin to a file cabinet. I find

that having the napkins on their ends, rather than lying flat or

stacking them allows me to page through them and see them easier.

Each set of napkins is in it’s own zippered bag. The outside of the bag

identifies how many napkins are in each bag. It saves a lot of

counting! When I’m working on a table, I’ll go to the napkin boxes

and pull out several bags of napkins that I think might work. Once

I’ve made my decision, it’s easy to slide the bags right back into place.

I find the two and a half gallon zip bags the best to allow the napkins

to lay flat and not bunch up. Similar to the tablecloth and hanger

method, when a set of napkins is in use or being laundered, the bag

sits empty awaiting their return.

For better or worse, seasonal napkins have their own little set of

drawers.

Well you can’t have all of those napkins without a bunch of napkin

rings. OK, maybe more than a bunch.

I find these shallow stacking drawers to be the perfect storage

solution for napkin rings, place card holders and such. You just slide

open the drawer and grab what you need. Of course, they are sorted

by color.

If you glance back two photos, you’ll see that the napkin ring drawers

are sitting atop an old chest of drawers. These drawers house my table

runners and such.  This drawer hold table runners in the blues. I’ve

even gone so far as to label the outside of these drawers. No matter

how well you think you know your stuff, when you start to

accumulate this much you forget. Label, label, label. Sometimes I

think I’m single handily keeping the company that makes the label

tape in business! LOL.

So on to placemats. This is a work in progress. These are larger

stackable drawers. My good friend Nancy gave me a bunch of these as

she recently had built in shelving installed. It’s a great way to store

placemats, but the truth is, I’m running out of space in which to put

the stackable drawers.

These round mats frequently act as chargers (oh, chargers, that’s a

whole other story).  They used to be color sorted, but that seems to

have gone by the wayside. These sure look like they could use a bit of

straightening. I like to keep them out where I can see them.

Clearly I love to collect and change things out with the seasons. Dish

towels and hand towels are no exception. I found that I had so many

dish towels, they clearly went beyond the capacity of my kitchen

drawers. One day on a “space for storage” hunt in my home, I realized

there was a cabinet in my laundry room above the dryer that really

wasn’t being utilized to it’s fullest potential. Yes, those are teacups

and pitchers up there on the ledge. But they’re not there for storage

per se, they’re there in a decorative sense. One of these days I’ll have to

do a tour of my laundry room. It’s small but fun and functional (and

has music, anything to try to make doing laundry better!).

But what to put in there was a bit of a quandary. Now don’t get me

wrong, there was no lack of stuff to put in the cabinet, but rather

exactly what stuff was the issue. Most of my dishes are in my dish

room in my basement. All of the linens in the earlier part of this post

are also stored in my basement. What was the right thing to cull out

of the collection that could stand alone, be put on the second

floor (and not have part of the collection in the basement and part

upstairs).

Seasonal towels won. This was definitely one of my better organizing

projects. I sorted out the towels by occasion, assigned shelves and

labeled. The good thing about doing this was that I realized how

many seasonal towels I have. Basically I don’t buy anymore.

This is one of those situations where you could say, why bother

labeling? It’s pretty obvious which are the Christmas towels and

which are the Harvest towels. But by labeling it just makes it easier.

I must have organized these three or four years ago. What I love, is

that they have stayed organized.

And because they are organized and easily accessible, I use what I

have. If you can’t find it, you don’t use it and there is just no sense to

having it at all.

By now you clearly must think I’m nuts or have an organizing fetish

or both. I don’t think either are the case. I have many wonderful

treasures and I like to use them. I just know that if I can’t find them, I

don’t remember I have them and don’t use them. Lest you think that

everything in my home is order (those that know me, know that this

couldn’t be further from the truth), I’m sharing the above photo and

parting photo with you.

I recently celebrated my birthday. So what do I ask for and get on my

birthday?  DISHES!!! The ones in the center – white with soft touches

of pink and splashes of gold flowers and decorations, they look

vintage but are new – were a birthday gift from my dear friend and

fellow dish-a-holic Barbara.

I love to mix and match my dishes and therefor am always on the

lookout for solids. I had spied the lovely lavender/orchid plates and

French blue plates in the Crate and Barrel catalog. My patient

husband, Mr. Scaper, and wonderful children indulged me. I was

thrilled (still am), BUT where to put them???

Those close to me know, I collect in sets of 12, so that’s 12 plates from

Barbara and 12 dinner plates and 12 salad plates in lavender plus 12

dinner plates and 12 salad plates in blue. That means I need to find a

home for 60 new plates!!!!!! Nancy gave me placemats (12 of course)

but I think I can squeeze those in.

Good thing Kathleen, of Cuisine Kathleen, gave me my birthday

present early. I’ve already found a home for them (of course they were

dishes). Which reminds me, I’ve got to do post with those.

Enough about me, I can’t wait to see where YOU keep it all!

- The Tablescaper