Modern homes are a curios reflection of our culture. They have brick facades that are not part of the structure. They are built out of sticks with plastic insulation being the main barrier between the inhabitants and the elements. In essence they are like big boxes of plastic designed with the look of houses but without most of the functionality. Windows don’t open. Shutters are nailed to the walls. And lawns are not planted, they are rolled out. It makes one wonder what kind of ideal the inhabitants are striving towards. Internally, the climate is controlled by machines to maintain a steady 70F. Welcome to life in a bubble. But I digress.

My main point is to discuss the storage of clothing. Clothes used to be stored in chests, and the later in dressers. Today, we have so much clothes that we store it in the walls.

Now one can (obviously) purchase various storage solutions, but it is easy to build your own. My closet has a rod for clothes hangers and two wide shelves above it. I have no dresser, my wife has the dresser. What I did was to hang shirts, dress pants, bathrobes, etc. on clothes hangers. On the shelves I put t-shirts/henleys, socks, and underwear. I separate these with two small cardboard boxes. The cardboard boxes contain shoe polish and ties respectively. On the upper shelf I keep a couple of sweatshirts and some jeans. Next to that is my collection of gadgets. GPS, binoculars, shortwave radio, stetson hat, and next to those a sleeping bag. Under the clothes hangers I have a large suitcase which holds out of season clothes. Next to that I have assorted bags. There are also a couple of hooks that holds an umbrella, a baseball cap and an octane8 camelbak.

Most apartments and houses today have a closet setup like this. Therefore there is no reason to buy a storage furniture(*). If you have any, consider getting rid of it. There’s nothing better than unencumbered floor space, which incidentally also acts as a convenient reminder to downsize 🙂

(*) It is helpful in older housing. Before moving here, we lived in a 1920s house with very small closets, that is to say, the closets were perfectly alright for a family of four at the time the house was built, but for two modern people, they were too small. Sad.

Originally posted 2008-08-01 21:26:40.