One More Tip

In the next few days I plan to switch all my files over to a more powerful computer. Hopefully this won't interfere with posting, but in case it does, I want to leave you with one more relatively inexpensive tip from Albert Hadley and Sister Parish.

It's been said that, more than any other 20th century decorators, Sister and Albert dedicated themselves to good housekeeping. According to Parish-Hadley: Sixty Years of American Design, when Sister pulled up to a new site in her station wagon, she often went straight to the client's hall closet or mudroom. She wanted to know how the gears of the house were running, and she was known to say, "The linen closet is too small. What we need is a linen room."

 

"In Mrs. Parish's linen rooms, squares of cardboard covered in pretty patterned wallpaper are inserted between napkins and placemats of different color or design, so that if you want to use the pink ones at the bottom of the stack, they can be removed without disturbing the others."

I'm sure Eddie Ross has similar dividers in his closets!

The linens shown above are from Leontine, and the wallpaper is from Walnut. The image of Albert and Sister is from Parish-Hadley: Sixty Years of American Design.