Four Ways I’d Solve the Clothes Chair
Clothes chairs are an inevitability, much like death and taxes: Nobody wants one, but everyone ends up with one anyway — Bernie Sanders included. At its most essential, the chair is a rest stop on the way from the closet to the laundry bin, holding clothes that aren’t clean but aren’t really dirty (a state described as “clurty” by one of our respondents). From that toehold, the clothes chair takes on additional roles: dumping ground for fresh laundry, staging area for tomorrow’s clothes, a semipermanent holding area for garments without a clear home.
If the chair is universal, so is the fantasy of eliminating it — everyone I talked to for this article wanted it gone. But I’d argue that the clothes chair cannot be organized away; remove it and piles will emerge in its place. It performs an essential function, and if we accept that clurty clothes are part of life, we can treat them like part of a system rather than clutter. Below are four solutions to four very different clothes-chair quandaries. To find previous installments of “Clutter Clinic,” click here — and if you have a mess for me to fix, email a photo and a brief explanation to strategist@nymag.com.
The sweater pile jammed in the corner
Primary complaint: “I have a FreshDirect bag full of sweaters on the floor next to my dresser that are in that liminal space where you have definitely worn them but they are not yet dirty. I don’t want to hang them up or put them in a drawer.”
Add a devoted sweater shelf
I am with you here — sweaters do not like being hung up (gravity puts stress on the fibers), and they take up a lot of space in a dresser. This corner is cramped at ground level but has plenty of space if you build upward. Why not add a bookcase just for sweaters? This accomplishes a couple of things — a case will contain the sweaters on three sides, keeping them from sliding around, and it will give you more storage space vertically. The sweaters are happy, the pile is gone, and you don’t have to hang them.
The cheapest option here would be a dinky medium-density fiberboard shelf from Wayfair, but next to your dresser, I feel you deserve real wood. Search for “unfinished wood furniture” in your area — I found these two shelves at Gothic Furniture, which has locations in Manhattan and Queens. They can be stained to match the dresser, or you can save money by handling the finish yourself (or leaving them unfinished). I’ve also included a similar shelf from Lowe’s that ships for free.
Facebook Marketplace and AuctionNinja are also essential stops; you can’t beat the quality-to-price ratio of secondhand wooden furniture. I love the carved details on this skinny shelf, and for more options, search “bookcase” and filter for location here.
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A sliver of space between the closet and window
Primary complaint: “I would love to not have a clothes chair because it’s visually unappealing but have never in my life been able to figure out a different solution. Sometimes I put my favorite clean clothes on there because I’m like, I’m gonna wear these ASAP. I want it to look more intentional, less like a person has died and evaporated there.”
Move the clothes chair off the floor
This is such a pretty corner, and I believe we can sneak some clothes storage in here without abutting the closet door or making it look like someone melted. The plant is already anchoring this area, and more bulk on the floor cuts into your walking path — I’d suggest moving the entire clothes chair up, mounting a wall rack that can hold a few items and display tomorrow’s clothes.
One option is a dowel rack, which can be expanded or collapsed flat depending on what it’s holding. I’ve included a collapsible Amish-made wall dryer and two options from Etsy, one with lower and higher capacity. (If you don’t mind lower capacity, I also love this metal one from the former USSR.)
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I also found this handmade walnut shelf from a furniture store in Ukraine, which has a towel bar you could drape a pair of jeans over and a shelf above for stacks of clothes. The dimensions shown aren’t quite right for the asker’s space, but the seller offers custom sizes via DM.
The clothes piles that block the closet
Primary complaint: “I pile my clothes everywhere, and I wear what’s on top of the piles. There’s a valet chair from Ikea with stuff hanging off it, a pile of clothes I mainly wear around the house, and a bag of sweaters that need dry cleaning. Almost everything in this photo is “clurty” (not clean but not dirty). I need to do a purge of things I don’t use anymore, keep up with the dry cleaning, and find places to put the clean clothes. Looking at it makes me feel gross!”
Take stock of what’s stressful about the piles
The challenge here is congestion — the clothes aren’t making it back to their homes, so the piles grow. I agree that donating unworn things is a good first step (if you’re in New York, try St. Mary’s Clothing Drive — you can schedule a pickup online, and it’s free). Then start putting everything away, but change the goal: Let yourself off the hook for clearing the piles today. Instead, tune into your reactions, notice where you feel stress and friction. Take those feelings seriously — write them down.
Maybe you hate looking for something in a dark closet or the feeling of forcing a drawer shut or not being able to see an important garment. Maybe there is not enough space to store everything. Then reset your space based on what you’ve learned about what makes you feel good. The key to organization is not self-discipline, it’s self-love; approach the piles with curiosity and they’ll take another shape.
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Light has been really helpful for me, so I’ve linked a set of motion-activated stick-on LEDs above. Some other ideas: an atomic-style coat rack to keep the house clothes accessible, vacuum bags for storing clothes you don’t wear, under-bed boxes for less-worn clothes (I think of this as having an A team and a B team), very skinny clothes hangers to maximize closet space, and a wall-mounted pot rack you could use as a hanger for smaller garments or accessories.
The clothes chair that just wants to be a chair
Primary complaint: “I hate displaying any form of laundry in the open. I want a solution that hides the clothes so my chair can just be a chair.”
Camouflage the clothes with a patchwork ottoman …
The clothes stick out on a spindly wooden chair, but I wonder if they would look less prominent against a textile. I found two ottomans that would do the trick, one made of denim, cotton, and linen and the other made of woolens (tartan and tweed) — the patchwork will camouflage the mix of fabrics.
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… Or use a mirror to magic the laundry out of sight
If the goal is to hide the laundry, a mirror is as close to a disappearing act as you can get. There are three options below: an Ikea mirror with a clothing rack behind it that we spotted on Maryam Nassir Zadeh’s Instagram and two versions from Wayfair that rotate 360 degrees — one that hides a rack and shelving, the other with a full cabinet behind it.
More clothes-chair alternatives we like
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