We've never had good places to stuff clothing. Apartments with scant or unusable closets. Northern climates requiring winter clothes and summer clothes. Two people who are lackadaisical about folding, hanging up, or otherwise being very tidy about laundry means a constant, low level, if clean, mess. (We're pretty good about putting dirty in a basket.)
No doubt having to go to laundromats or laundry rooms means putting away is an irritating chore on the heels of a big, heavy chore, that then doesn't get done. No laundry fairies. Sadly. And worn once, still clean, articles, wind up thrown wherever. Well, don't want to put it completely away with the clean, right?
The closets here are both tiny, and largely unusable day-to-day. Having washer and dryer right here, inside, not far away from the bedroom, reduces the efficacy of the excuse, and shows we are essentially lazy on this subject. But even when we take on the piles, we find ourselves just shifting them around, since there is so little place to put anything.
So, we dug into the budget, and shopped around, and around, and around. We have a tall, narrow chest of drawers, a lingerie chest to be technical, that we got many years ago, at a local place that makes all-wood furniture.
Specialty Furniture is not posh, and has a good range of affordable, to 'Oh, if only I were rich' furniture. Looked at some really affordable chests at a regular furniture store, particle board, no slides, and decided that cheap meant cheap, inadequate, breakable, useless in a few years and in need of replacing. So, we went back to the "All-Wood, All-The-Time!" place, where we'd looked before, but didn't quite want to spend that much. Until we starting seeing what else was available.
And, well, it's Labor Day Weekend. This one was 50% off, and just at the edge of what we were going to wince at, but pay.
If it was worth it. Maple, solid, drawers that will glide easily for decades, more finishing and detail than we would have chosen, a bonus, a treat for the eyes and hands. We looked at a pine one, that we'd have had to finish, would have held up just fine. In twenty years, when these both still quietly do their jobs, that extra bit we paid, will not even be remembered. Ah, well, it really is well made.
D talked to me about the relative merits of wood on the way home, generally in relation to their use in guitars, but extrapolating. Maple being used mostly for necks, because it's smooth and solid, but for the body, it makes the sound too bright and brittle. The older chest of ours is probably alder, also a guitar wood, with a much better sound, apparently.
I've never seen the bedroom so organized. We decided this is the nicest bit of furniture we've ever owned. A good flat surface for Sebastian, a lamp, and my pottery.
Oh, and it fit beautifully in
our car. (Which may be a Tardis in disguise, being larger on the inside than the outside.) The guys who brought it out seemed dubious, but I was pretty sure. And it slid in perfectly. D only had to give up his leg room on the passenger side.
Sometimes, maybe usually, going cheapest winds up much more expensive. When we were poor, there often wasn't a choice, since getting that lump sum couldn't happen. Once we could manage it, we learned to get the best, preferably on sale, that we could eke out. Better to do without than waste resources on the chintzy, and ultimately, disposed of. We're watching the money carefully, but we are not what I would call poor anymore. Not rich, not even well-to-do, but we know the rent is going to be there.
Oh, and relative to the last post
Some research on cat's purrs.
And another about the same study. Closing comments, because I keep getting spam comments, trying to sell us furniture.
