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catbird_gw

How do you store your placemats???

catbird
17 years ago

We're planning some remodeling and one thing I'd like to come up with is a good way to store placemats. I hang the tablecloths on hangers in a closet, which works very well for me. Placemats right now are stacked in a server in the dining room and that's not working well. The mats I want are always on the bottom and there's no way to get them out without messing up the whole stack. I use as many as twelve of one kind at a time and the stack gets pretty deep. Suggestions and pictures would be appreciated.

Comments (10)

  • housekeeping
    17 years ago

    I use a lot of linen placemats and it is very vexing to want the kind that's on the bottom of the stack. No matter how careful you are, you can easily wrinkle a whole pile of them.

    My solution was to design a cabinet with doors that open to reveal a bank of very close together pullout shelves, so each kind is stored in its own stack and I can peel off what I need in a jiff.

    Below that I have several deeper (meaning the sides are higher) pullouts which are for napkins. I have some dividers on those to keep those stacks from falling over. As we only use cloth napkins, I need a lot of storage for them.

    HTH,

    Molly

  • lazy_gardens
    17 years ago

    I've seen them rolled gently and placed in a wine rack

  • talley_sue_nyc
    17 years ago

    I was going to suggest that you roll them, even if you place them in the drawer. Stack each design, roll, and then stack the rolls. Then you only have to pick up a roll or two to get to the other ones.

  • catbird
    Original Author
    17 years ago

    Thanks for the suggestions. I was considering the multiple shelves and am glad to hear that that can work. Had not thought of rolling the placemats up. That wouldn't work with the straw mats, but those are easier to dig under anyway.

  • quiltglo
    17 years ago

    I have a cabinet which has a rod across it, towards the top. I've wondered if that was for hanging towels or something. I was thinking if you had a cabinet or space, you could put sets together with the skirt clips so they would hang down much like the tablecloths.

    Gloria

  • jenathegreat
    17 years ago

    Mine are in the linen closet, but it sounds like you have a lot more placemats than I do.

    If there's room next to the tablecloths, why not hang the placemats too? I'm not sure how many would fit in one clip, but how about a multiple-skirt-hanger?

    If you need to keep them in a drawer or on a shelf, can you store sets in large plastic bags - maybe a 2gallon ziploc bag? Even if they can't be closed up, it would keep the stack sorted by pattern and it would be easier to stack 5 bundles of placemats rather than 60 individual placemats.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Multiple skirt hanger

  • catbird
    Original Author
    17 years ago

    Thanks. The plastic bags would help with the oval lacy mats that wouldn't work on a skirt hanger. The two gallon size might be about right.

  • kbhaak
    3 years ago

    for years I’ve struggled with my placemats stacked in a drawer in the kitchen. I love the idea of using a skirt hanger. Now my placemats are hanging on a couple of skirt hangers in the closet next to the wooden hangers that hold my table cloths. Thanks for the idea!

  • Momof5x
    3 years ago

    Maybe you could get a slim chest of drawers specifically just for all the place mats and table cloths too etc. I keep mine in a sideboard cupboard.