core77 covered this debate on apartment therapy, which asked the question: when you've worn cloths once, what do you do with them?
Most people (although judging from their comments there seem to be several exceptions) are reluctant to mix them up with the clean stuff, or chuck them onto the dirty washing pile prematurely. I guess the standard approach is to drape them over a chair or something (that's what I do, anyway), on the assumption that they're going to be worn again soon. Of course, this means that every morning I transfer a big pile of clothing from the chair to my bed and back again while I rummage for things to wear. Other approaches seem to include using coat racks, clearing a space in your closet, or hooks on the backs of doors (I'm thinking that's not going to cope with the sheer quantity of clothing my chair has to deal with).
I have a special interst in this from two perspectives: I'm planning to redecorate my bedroom in the near future, and if I could design out that big pile of clothing that would be a bonus; and also, as the core77 article points out, it's bizarre that nobody has designed an item of furniture which deals with this thorny (and pretty much universal) problem.
So, in the spirit of ethnographic research (or just sheer nosiness), I'm curious - how do you deal with this issue?
41 comments:
I let it pile up, and then, when the pile is big enough, I end up putting it all in the wash anyway.
If I have worn it once, it goes in a scattered pile on the floor by my side of the bed until Better Half says "Grr grr grr, look at the state of this room", whereupon I Sniff Test. Those garments passing said test are folded away again. Those garments failing said test go into the washing.
Yep. Exactly the same here.
I tried hanging the odd item up at one side of my wardrobe - but it just didn't work out.
Get a coat-rack.
boys! hang up your clothes.
back in the days of ringer washers and clotheslines, my grandmother used to say hang it up and let the air clean it for next time.
but we've become so spoiled with modern conveniences, our clothes are made limp and pale before they need be by overwashing.
I used to hang my clothes on a clotheshorse at my old house, as it came with the house (this was when I was living in Scotland). I put it near the heater, so it was also useful for warming my clothes on cold mornings so that all my stuff would nice and cosy. Just about all the clothes that didn't need a wash yet weren't exactly completely clean but could be worn again were put there also.
Throwing things on the floor just rumples them.
Some articles go back in the drawer, but there is a pile on the floor and I always wondered why it never went away. Now I know...
I will only wear jeans for a second time, so they hang on a corner of a chair or a hook on the back of the bathroom door...the rest of the stuff goes right into the hamper.
Well, frankly, it depends if they're dirty or not, doesn't it? Underwear I only wear once before washing, and shirts. Most everything else, I wear until it's either dirty or too wrinkled.
What!? That's preposterous.
You can wear one piece for four days at least: back-to-front and inside out (back and front)...
Only if you keep moving the pole.
I have a jumper I've owned for nine years and never washed. In my defence, it was once a very nice, properly greasy woolly jumper, and I didn't want to wash it for fear of ruining the wool. Now it smells almost exactly like carpet.
[Gets up and moves to other side of room.]
Actually, on reflection, I think the best answer to this question would have to be: "Sell them" - which is what some Japanese school girls get to do with their underwear.
No wonder they're all moving back to Poland.
this discussion has gone from bad dogs to dirty dogs.
I agree with Peter, it gets cleaned if it's dirty (though I'm not bothered about wrinkles). Although as far as I can tell, people here seem to be suggesting they have some kind of rotation thing going on. My clothes spend their nights in a pile on my chair and are worn the next day, they go to the wash when the stains are more noticable than the pattern.
Work shirts and pants get hung back up on the right side unless they need a trip to the cleaners. I generally wear the same after-work clothes until dirty, which usually end up on some flat surface (bed, dresser, shelf, floor). I really should clear a shelf just for these.
I only have one set of clothes...
Jackets are hung on a hook in a section of our walk-in 'robe, where they are able to air.
Trousers get three wears* before they go in the drycleaning basket.
Business shirts** go straight in the drycleaning basket after one wear***.
All other items are worn once then straight in the washing basket.
* Assumes they have had nothing spilled upon them, or have not been soaked in sweat, in our tropical climate.
** I have business shirts still in excellent condition after 16 years of use, as they have only ever been worn once a month and have always been professionally laundered and pressed. It costs $1.50 per shirt to have them done this way.
*** In our climate you cannot wear garments like shirts twice; they simply absorb too much sweat with our high temperatures and high humidity. That means they smell very sour the next day.
My jackets go to the drycleaner at the end of each month. In effect, I have two separate wardrobes of clothing. At any given time there are 2-3 jackets, 6-10 trousers (I never buy a suit without getting three trousers with each jacket and I buy 3-4 of any garment I particularly like) and 20-30 business shirts at the cleaners. That means I have a comparable number of like items at home, except shirts, of which I usually have about 40 to choose from. It has taken years and very judicious selection to ensure my clothes don't date quickly, all co-match and are of sufficient quality to stand up to the regular cleaning and long-term use.
I have a commercial account at my drycleaner, so my wife and I spend roughly $100/month on cleaning of clothes. That represents about 1 contact hour of work time for either of us, so it's pretty economical. Other items, like underwear and polo shirts, are washed and immediately dried with every use and thrown out as soon as they get too tatty (e.g. Underwear is binned as soon as a seam or the elastic starts to disintegrate. Buying underwear 20 pairs at a time means you spend about $100-150 every two years on underpants.) We wash clothes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, including the kids' school uniforms.
I know how anal that routine sounds, but washing and ironing clothes is an unproductive task that we outsourced years ago, when we started into business for ourselves.
That's the thing for me. I have work clothes and non-work clothes, and at any one time I'm wearing one set and the chair is hosting the other (along with a few others, like the shirt I wore yesterday but didn't particularly feel like wearing today).
I used to have a lecturer who maintained that clothes should be hung for seven times as long as they were worn - accordingly he had five identical suits, one for each day of the week.
Sounds like a nice routine to me. The only real differnce in our systems is that we almost never have the sweat problem here in Seattle.
I dream of living in a cool climate. It's 5:30am here and already 27degC (81F)
Winter's much better. It gets down to about 8C (48F) at this hour, for about two months of the year.
I wear my clothes until they're dirty (I'm a pretty clean person, don't sweat unnecessarily or spill stuff on them, so they last a while) or til they've lost their shape. Then I wash them. Otherwise I hang them back in the closet if they're expensive or delicate after wearing them. If they're not expensive or delicate, I half fold them and toss them on the trunk, where it ends up being a pile of hangers, belts, clothes, handbags and shoes (I have yet to figure out how my shoes end up in that pile.) Then, once a week, I put everything back in its proper place, promising myself I'll never let it get to such a state.
Do you get articles like your blue dress drycleaned?
I've often said that about you, Marie.
When you put it like that it makes perfect sense.
Har har. I've heard enough Monica jokes/jokes that I look like Monica to last me 7 lifetimes.
I'm still to be convinced that you're not Monica, sweetheart.
Thank you, Matt. I'm even emptying my mechanical pencil sharpener very carefully and neatly into to trash bin, as we speak. It's hard work, but cleanliness pays, as my ma always told me.
Of course, if worn in a smoky place, all clothing is stripped and put in a pile to be burned immediately. well, not really, but I wish they could be. cigs are so stank!
I don't even own a blue dress, never have. If that doesn't convince you, I don't know what will. ;-)
It took us a few years to figure it out. Once I got it sorted in my head that it wasn't a mortal sin to not iron your own clothes I was fine with the concept.
In hindsight, it has saved us about 3-4 hours a week for 12 years.
Wasn't it Linda's dress, and you just borrowed it?
Beret. Talk about the beret next. That would be funny...
Monica is so last decade, Hector. Most we can muster is a bored Waah-waaah.
Well, Marie hasn't shot anyone, so we can't do Cheney jokes.
She hasn't got a face that looks like Grana Padano cheese rind, so we can't do Nancy Pelosi jokes.
She hasn't mentioned anything about manicures and Earl Grey Lattes recently, so that's out.
Bubble gum jokes are just so passe, so we'll leave that alone.
No reports of snakes in the garden, recently... bugger!
No tornadoes in California... no Dorothy jokes...
What is left?
Nothing. I guess we're stuck with Wonder Woman bra jokes...
Hey, how do you know about my Wonder Woman bra?
Oh, that one. Oops.
Funny you should say that, H. Actually, I shot the last person who made Monica jokes with me.
If the item in question is a T-shirt, you could always fold it in 2 seconds.
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