Tea at Trianon: Organizing Your Linen Closet

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, May 12, 2025

Organizing Your Linen Closet

From Better Homes ad Gardens:

Linen closets come in a variety of shapes and sizes. You may have a standard one with a handful of shelves, a narrow bathroom closet, or a freestanding armoire that you’ve reassigned for this storage purpose. Whatever your situation currently looks like, if the space is overstuffed, it’s time to declutter.

When you let go of things you no longer need, it'll open up space to store items that have been otherwise crowding the bathroom. Medicine, for example, shouldn’t be kept in an area that gets steamy, so the linen closet could make a better location for it than the bathroom once you clear room on a shelf. Rolls of backstock toilet paper and paper towels can also reside in a tidy linen closet rather than crammed under the bathroom sink.

Whether you're looking to create more storage space or just tidy your overstuffed shelves, these are the items you should remove from your linen closet, according to a professional organizer. (Read more.)