I have kept house for fifty years, and the first thing I have ever written to a shop about hangs on the back of a door
I have kept house for fifty years, and the first thing I have ever written to a shop about hangs on the back of a door
Six things the Tidyhaven organiser gets right that a lifetime of baskets, boxes and drawer towers got wrong, written by a customer, not a home writer.
Maggie Whitfield · Customer · Cheshire · 5 min read
Let me be plain about who is talking. I am Maggie, I am 67, I live in Cheshire with a labrador who thinks he runs the house, and in all my years I have never once written to a shop about anything. What I have done is buy storage. Plastic drawer towers, wicker baskets, pretty boxes with lids, a shoe rack that ended up holding everything except shoes. So this is not a review. It is a woman who was wrong about something hanging on a door, saying so.
The one I am writing about is called the Tidyhaven, from Manchester Boutique, a small British boutique that has been quietly making the ordinary things a bit lovelier for a few years now. I first saw it at the dog sitter’s, the woman in the next village who has our labrador whenever I go and stay with my sister June, and when the boutique later asked if they could put my letter up for others to read, I said yes, on the condition I could be completely honest in it.
She has four dogs of her own and grandchildren most afternoons, and her kitchen is the calmest room I know. When she opened the back door to let the dogs out, there it was on the back of it, black and white houndstooth, every lead and glove and torch in its own pocket. Read on.
Here is what fifty years of keeping house taught me about storage. It comes in two piles. The pile that eats the floor, the drawer towers and baskets and boxes that you walk round and stub your toe on, which hide everything so well you buy it twice. And the pile of nothing at all, the hall table, the bedside, the kitchen windowsill, where the small things of a life simply land and stay.
Either it swallowed the floor, or it all ended up in a heap on the hall table. Those were my choices, and I had tried both for decades.
The Tidyhaven is the first thing I have owned that is neither, and after a month of it on the back of my bedroom door, I can tell you it comes down to six things.
The day it came. I ordered it expecting to send it back. It was on the door by teatime.
It uses the back of a door, space you already have
I am starting here because this is what stopped me in the dog sitter’s kitchen. Every other bit of storage I have bought needed somewhere to stand. This needs nothing. It hangs flat against the back of a door or a bare stretch of wall, the space every house has and nobody thinks about, and it takes not one inch of floor or shelf. My bedroom has not had a clear chair in years. It does now.
Our cottage has no cupboards to speak of. This went on the back of the bedroom door and I got a whole chest of drawers worth of space for nothing.
Moira T., HexhamEvery small thing gets its own pocket
There are three deep pockets stacked one above the other, each big enough for a folded jumper or a stack of gloves, a slim flat pocket right at the top, and along the front of the bottom one a row of four little see-through mesh pockets, which is where the reading glasses, the hand cream and the comb now live. That is the whole secret. Nothing piles on top of anything else, so nothing gets lost underneath.
The second one, inside the wardrobe door. Belts, scarves and the good tights, all where I can see them.
Scarves in the top, gloves in the middle, glasses and lip balm in the little mesh pockets. I have stopped turning the house upside down every morning.
Hilda M., AlnwickYou can see what is in it without rummaging
The top two pockets each have a clear little window on the front, and the four along the bottom are see-through mesh, so I can tell at a glance which pocket has the gloves and which has the scarf. At my age anything that saves a rummage is worth its weight. I had a lovely set of lidded boxes once. I opened every one of them every time I wanted anything, and in the end I stopped opening them at all.
On the back of my bedroom door. Everything I reach for on a cold morning, where I can see it.
The little windows are cleverer than they look. My husband can find the torch now without shouting up the stairs.
Glenys K., MorpethIt went up in a minute
There are two metal eyelets at the top corners and that is the whole of it. I put two small hooks on the back of the door, hung it on, and it sat straight first time. No drill, no man with a toolbox, no instructions to lose. And because it simply lifts off, I have already moved one from the spare room to the landing and back again without a second thought.
Two little hooks and it was up before the kettle boiled. I did it myself and I am seventy four.
Margaret S., RothburyIt looks smart, not like storage
This is the part I did not expect. The houndstooth is a proper classic black and white dogtooth, edged in black all the way round, and it looks more like the lining of a good tweed coat than something from a hardware shop. My sister June stood in my bedroom doorway and asked where I had bought it before she asked what was in it. Storage has never once had a compliment in my house before.
I was worried it would look cheap on the door. It looks smart. The houndstooth goes with everything in my bedroom.
Joan F., WoolerThere is a design and a length for every room
They do the Tidyhaven in houndstooth, a soft plain grey and a green plaid, and there is a pink plaid one they call the Rosyhaven, which my granddaughter has her eye on. Each comes in two lengths, 40 by 62 centimetres or 40 by 89, and there are two wardrobe versions in the plaids with fewer, bigger pockets. I have since gone back for the grey for the craft corner in the spare room, before June and her lot come for Christmas, and it has quietly swallowed every ball of wool I own.
The grey one, in the craft corner. The wool finally has an address.
Bought the grey for the spare room before the family came to stay. The guests had somewhere for their bits and I had my dressing table back.
Sheila W., CorbridgeThe Tidyhaven, against the storage you have been buying
You can spend twenty odd pounds on storage in any shop in the country. I know, because my loft is full of the evidence. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
Need floor or shelf space you have not got
Everything piles up and gets lost underneath
Lids and drawers you have to open to find anything
Look like storage, so they get hidden away
One size, wrong for half the rooms
Hangs on the back of a door, no floor needed
Three deep pockets, a top pocket and four mesh ones
Clear windows and see-through mesh at a glance
Smart houndstooth, soft grey or cheerful plaids
Two lengths, a design for every room
About the price
The Tidyhaven is £24.95 in the 62 centimetre length, down from £50.00, and £25.95 in the 89, down from £52.00. Every design is the same price.
I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that these are in the autumn sale while everybody is getting the house straight before the Christmas visitors, and once a design sells through, it is gone. Their words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that a mark-down is usually where I start asking what is wrong with something, and after a month of daily use, I have not found it.
And I do not trust perfect scores, so I read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars, which sounded like real people rather than robots, so I read on. The same six things I have just walked you through come up in them, over and over, in other women’s words.
By the bed. The reading glasses have not been lost once since.
If your hall table, your bedside and the back of every door are buried under the small things of a life, and you are tired of storage that eats the floor, this is the one I would hang up for you myself, while the houndstooth is still there. Stop dithering and go and look.
Maggie
THE HANGING ORGANISER COLLECTION
- Hangs on the back of a door or wall, no floor space needed
- Three deep pockets, a slim top pocket and four mesh pockets
- Clear windows so you can see what is inside
- Two metal eyelets, up in a minute on two hooks
- Houndstooth, grey, green plaid and pink plaid
- Two lengths, 40 × 62 cm or 40 × 89 cm
- Free UK delivery
Autumn sale on now. Once a design is gone, it is gone.