The Napkin Insanity

The lesson of the day: we NEVER need to buy another cloth napkin.

OK, let's back up the bread truck.  Our work around the house has lately been more of the sorting/purging/cleaning/organizing kind, rather than the renovation kind.  But it's just as necessary, and actually almost as satisfying.  So I thought I'd share my latest organizational triumph.

While we were engaged, we received a ton of linens from Fred's family.  So many, in fact, that I found it sort of overwhelming and we stuffed them in a closet to be dealt with after the wedding insanity had died down.  Cue last week.

Unfortunately I don't have a before picture of this closet.  But imagine total chaos of 100 year old linens.  Add a hamster.  That's pretty much what it looked like.

The new closet:

 Martha would be sooo proud.  So now you want to know exactly how many cloth napkins we own?

 Those are all napkins.  I think the final total came in at ninety bagajillion.  (Or more precisely, around 100.)  But still!  Who needs 100 vintage cloth napkins?  I do, clearly.  Some of them are completely wonderful and ancient and monogrammed, but that's the subject of a different post (watch out, my own version of antiques roadshow will show up any day now.)

Also on the subject of I-am-newly-married-and-suddenly-obsessed-with-linens (ok, I've been into linens for a long time), we finally sucked it up and bought some adult-person towels.  Because I love the vintagey-adorableness of monograms and because I'm tickled to have a brand-new name, we got them monogrammed too!  Check out the cuteness:

Very old Hollywood, non?  I'm in love.  Bath towel?  YES please!

Side discussion: monograms.  Monograms are VERY confusing entities.  Your last name goes in the middle, which is bananas right off the bat.  Linens can either have the traditional monogram (bride's new initials) or the modern monogram (bride's first initial - couple's last initial - groom's first initial).  Confusingly enough, if you want to get glassware monogrammed, the groom's initial is supposed to go first.  Aaaack!  It's enough to drive you distracted.  Why did we get my monogram on our combined towels?  Because the "F" in the monogramming font looked dumb.  Since F doesn't care what is on the towels as long as they dry him sufficiently, we went with mine. 

And then, just to complete the total domesticity, I organized the other linen closet.

It makes me feel better just knowing these closets aren't pits of despair anymore.  Hamsters evicted, peace reigns.  Ahhhh.