Where to put used-but-usable clothes (a.k.a. alternative to "The Chair")?

Question

We all know The Chair. The Chair where you put the clothes clean enough not to go in the laundry, but not enough to go back in the wardrobe. The Chair that looks like this:

It exists because you plan to wear those clothes again in the near future, so you want them to be easily accessible. And you don't want to mix them with the 100% clean, folded and ironed clothes in your wardrobe.

But aesthetically this is not satisfying. Is there a better-looking alternative? Where to put used, but still usable clothes to make them easily accessable and hidden, or at least not looking messy?

Answer 1

I use an IVAR side panel from IKEA (any similar thing, for example a small ladder, or screwing together a few wooden bars yourself will do as well). Lean it agains a wall at a slight angle and throw clothes over the horizontal bars. Done.

Stands almost entirely flat against the wall if you don't use it, comes in different sizes, is cheap and most people who have seen it in my room thought it looked kinda cool.

If you truly want to hide it, this usually fits behind a door pretty well.

Answer 2

I always install a hanging rod or hook in the laundry area for just this occasion. They're great for hanging those damp towels you'd use again if the occasion arises, or that out-and-about shirt you just threw on to run to the corner grocery… but seems wasteful to throw in the laundry if you may need it again shortly.

The advantage of using the laundry area is it reminds you to wash those items if you don't need them again, and it gives you something to top off the laundry if you need to do a load but don't have quite enough items to justify running a full cycle.

Answer 3

You can use clothes hanging wall mount inside your wardrobe door. I do the same thing with my two wardrobe. You can use both the doors according to your need.

You can buy this kind of wall mount which is easy to remove from your wardrobe.

If you want to permanently use the wall mount then use this kind of wall mounts.

Now, the below image shows how to use the wall mount inside wardrobe. You can use both the doors according to your need.

If you are using Horizontal wardrobe or your wardrobe is having sliding door then you can use foldable wardrobe which consume less space. If you don't want to use then you can easily fold it and put it anywhere. Foldable wardrobe are available with different different varieties and sizes you can choose according to your need. Foldable wardrobe looks beautiful and all your clothes are hide inside it.

There are so many advantages of foldable wardrobe one of them is if guest come to your home and you have less space to put guest clothes then you just open foldable wardrobe and its done.

Answer 4

I use a storage ottoman in my bedroom for this purpose, something like this:

Pic credit walmart

The lid remains off most of the time and I usually don't mind it being open.
If I have guests over, I can easily cover the lid and then it's just an ottoman.
It doesn't look like laundry and functions as an extra seat if required.
I find that the size is large enough to fit my in-between clothes, but small enough to (1) not take up too much space and (2) force me to not put my entire wardrobe in there.

Answer 5

I use a clothes tree in the corner of my bedroom. It might also be called a coat tree or coat rack.

I guess that it is still as ugly as "the chair", but it takes up less room.

Answer 6

I put worn-once-but-not-dirty back in the wardrobe but change the direction of the hanger hooks so that they can be immediately identified as "half-way." Facing forward vs. facing backward.

In addition, the left-half of the wardrobe is "reserved" for these articles. Once worn hoodies, sweaters, and folded outer-wear sits on the shelf above hanging clothes.

Fresh stuff enters the wardrobe on the right-hand side and moves leftward on its way to be cleaned.

Suits that have been worn once (or twice) are brought to be "sponged-and-pressed" between being "dry-cleaned." This is a less wear-and-tear treatment for structured outer-wear.

Confession: I also have and "use" a "chair."

Answer 7

Door hooks

I use door hooks. They are similar to the wall mounted ones, but require no drilling and can hold more weight than the sticky version.

They come in a variety of shapes and sizes ranging from the simple S-shape (left) to full hangers (right)

Answer 8

When I first met the guy who is now the spousal unit he didn't have a lot of furniture.

In fact in the bedroom he had a bed and a step ladder. He used the stepladder as a wardrobe till he got a real cupboard later on. In fact a stepladder is very handy. He had a torch clipped onto it as a bedside light.

And of course the stepladder doubled as a stepladder sometimes.

Answer 9

I have a laundry basket I keep next to my dirty laundry baskets specifically designated for this (the little one on the left, below). It's also a convenient place to dump clothing instead of the floor when I'm too tired to deal with putting it away when getting undressed, so outer layers often end up there for a day or two. Whenever I do laundry (or sometimes sooner if it starts to overflow and look messy), I go through it and anything left in there either gets added to the wash if it's actually dirty (field/workout/gardening clothes, etc), or hung back in the closet if it really isn't dirty enough to worry about (usually sweaters, jeans, etc).

Answer 10

This is not particularly discreet but it is neater than The Chair and offers excellent ventilation for the clothes. I used it when I was in college for Yesterday's Clothes To Throw On If There Is A Fire Alarm.

1. Get a set of 6 wire mesh storage cubes (the kind that are assembled from flat mesh panels and plastic corner connectors, and sold to students for dorm rooms).
2. Assemble them 2 wide by 3 high so that the topmost sections are open on top instead of in front.

This offers you four possible edges to drape items over and 6 shelves to lay smaller ones on.

(No picture of the cubes because I couldn't find one suitably licensed and I don't have any myself at the moment.)

Answer 11

The truth is that, if your clothes are not clean enough to go back in your wardrobe, they really need to go in the wash, not on your chair for wearing again.

If you've warn them and they're even slightly smelly or dirty, then you really don't want to wear them again, do you? So, wash them!

On the other hand, if they're neither of those things, they won't contaminate other things if they go back in with the clean stuff, so do that. It really is OK to put worn but clean stuff back in the 'drobe.

Similarly, if your garments are too crumpled to go back with the tidy stuff, they're too crumpled to wear, so press them again before putting them back.

Now, you might argue that some clothes will never get washed following this principle. In practice, this simply doesn't happen; you can tell when clothes need washing.

I gave up my own chair about 2 years ago, and can attest that the wash-or-wardrobe method works well in practice.

In summary, then, I'd say your challenge isn't to find a different resting place for half-worn clothes, but to see the problem differently. Clothes go back in the wardrobe or they go in the wash. There really is no middle ground.

Answer 12

More suited to the male and more formal wardrobe, but a good alternative is a trouser press. They typically have a hanger for a jacket and shirt if you wish (though if you can reserve a section of your closet for shirts it's better to air them out). Corby is one famous maker, though there are knock-offs available I can vouch for the quality of the original (and lack of quality of at least one knock-off). There is a timer and the press delivers electric heat to the trousers so you have freshly pressed trousers in the morning.

Answer 13

What you want is a clothes horse.

also known as a valet stand. You can find them in many different designs and materials. If you want to make it a permanent fixture of your bedroom or dressing room, you can surely find one which matches your decor.

Answer 14

We use over-the-door hooks.

You can hang this on the inside of a bedroom door, or on a closet door (either inside or outside).

Answer 15

A great life hack in this situation is to set things up so that your clothes actually have a place to go that isn't the chair already. The way I look at it is this: stained clothes I can spot wash and if the clothes are smelly in the first place I definitely don't want to wear them again until they're washed. So I spot wash anything with a stain and at this point I can't tell the difference from clean clothes, so I exploit this so the clothes can actually be put back with the clean clothes in the first place.

Wrinkles are a problem, and since an iron is too much work another great life hack is to use a hand-steamer, which is easy to store and operate and works just as well. Again at this point the clothes have reached a state where they able to go into the wardrobe without any confusion or unsightliness.

I've found this system is a really huge improvement on the state of my room and my wardrobe because it's a backdoor approach to avoiding having another category of storage that I had difficulty getting to really work out right. Plus I always have more good clothes to wear and I have to do laundry less because I've found the trick to keeping clothes ready-to-wear clean and wrinkle-free.

Hope this helps.

Answer 16

I use a cloth dryer for this purpose.

• It has lot of room and is space-efficient.
• Clothes are ventilated.
• You can also use it, partially or totally, to actually dry clothes
• If you are receiving guests, it looks tidier than The Chair.

Just pick the model that best suits your needs :)