featured articles:

creative closet storage

Home Closets

Open closets in your home and look inside. How would you describe the wardrobe for your bedrooms and bathrooms, the truly private sanctuaries of your home?

The sheets you experience as you pull up the covers and turn off the lights and then awaken to in the morning, and the towels you use to dry your body after bathing, are of paramount importance in the decoration of houses.

The art of living well at home is to have the eye pleased wherever it wanders, and some of the most important fabrics in our home are stored in the closet.

You get a good idea about the mood of a household from looking in the closets. Just as you are particular about the softness of a cotton nightshirt or pajamas against your skin, you should never compromise on fine linens. After twenty years you may have some Porthault or other cotton sheets with a high-quality thread count that are so old they're full of rips, but they still feel so soft and luxurious that you can't bear to part with them.

The ultimate luxury is to use your finest linens every day. Indulge yourself, your family, and your guests by having a wonderful, eclectic selection of sheets, pillows, shams, blankets, bath towels, and other bed linens.

Creative Closet Storage

Putting your things in order can be a creative process. You can have fun figuring out the most convenient as well as practical solutions to storage. Remember that often it's not how much you have, but how well you arrange things that makes all the difference.

Common sense and convenience are of primary importance in organizing your accumulated possessions so you have peace of mind about where everything is. But for those who love to feast their eyes on beautiful things, even the insides of closets and storage areas are opportunities for experiencing the beauty of order, while also being suitable to your purposes and needs. This is a tall order if you don't live alone and everyone in the family has a different set of passions and needs. One system is never right for everyone, but there are some general rules.

If you like all the things you store, or if they're intensely personal and meaningful, they can always be arranged in an attractive way so your closets and storage are aesthetically uplifting as well as sensible..

In The Closet

To be sure your bed linens, terry-cloth bath towels, and dining room tablecloths speak for you, go back to your basic, personal color palette. Sheets are just as important as clothes, and I suggest you spend time, energy, and money collecting pure cotton, linen, or even silk bed linens to enhance your private sanctuary and to nourish yourself aesthetically. You owe it to yourself to add spice, fantasy, and elegance to the most intimate moments of your life.

Don't hold back on purchasing a new set of good sheets or buying three or four new pure white or brightly colored terry-cloth towels to spruce up your collection.

Express your love of color in the bedroom and bathroom. Even if you prefer white sheets, they can be embroidered, trimmed, scalloped, or bound beautifully in a fresh tint. You can collect old white pillow shams, napkins, tablecloths, and hand towels for years. You may enjoy having a very fine, white cotton, square embroidered tablecloth draped over a round pine three-legged table in the bedroom to delight the eye and to inspire a glass of iced tea and a visit.

Each sheet, bath towel, tablecloth, napkin, pillow, and hand towel is part of the tapestry of home, enticing you to ritualize your daily activities. Here is where you can quietly and regularly have function and convenience as well as luxury, elegance, and refinement. The seductive details make a difference when you're loving, and they comfort you when you're sick. Dinner at the kitchen table becomes a celebration when you light a candle, put a fresh flower in a vase, play music, and enjoy pretty cotton napkins. If you want to know more about yourself, look at your cotton napkins, tablecloths, towels, and sheets. Look at your striped and flowered cotton hand towels, tea cloths, and cocktail napkins. All the colors can be from the garden, the sky, and sea. These sweet refinements should be among your greatest treasures of home life and will grow in meaning as the memories of happy times with family and friends accumulate. Your house needs as many seasonal "clothes" as your body. When you build a collection of fabrics that are sensuous and inviting, you will feel uplifted in spirit, always having a variety to choose from that will complement your mood, the weather, and the time of year.