A New Place For Dirty Laundry

Laundry hamper, purchased in 1995

After my first wedding, in April of 1995, my husband and I settled in to our newlywed apartment in the West Village of Manhattan.

We unpacked wedding gift after wedding gift. Espresso machine. Citrus juicer. China and crystal for 12. A few decanters. A little porcelain Lladro piece of a bride and a groom.

One of the key, really useful, items that we didn’t have? A laundry hamper.

So one Saturday afternoon, I found a dark rattan one at the Pottery Barn a few blocks away. It was a floor model so I carried it home with my arms wrapped around it like we were doing a dance. Not heavy, just unwieldy. When I got to my apartment, I placed it in the exact corner I had envisioned it in and it was perfect.

Fast forward 17 years. I’ve had two kids, moved to Florida, gotten divorced and remarried and have lived in the same house for over 13 years.

A lot of change. For everybody. But one of the constants?

That fricking dark rattan Pottery Barn hamper.

I’ve been married to my second husband, the one I’m planning on keeping until death-do-we-part, for almost six years. And it’s only in the last year that he and I have slowly begun to re-do the interior of our house. To turn it in to something that is ours. (He is a patient man.)

A few months ago, we started in our boudoir. The stained, dirty old carpet was ripped out and replaced with hardwood. The tropical green walls were painted a shade of grey. (Ha ha. Yes, I read the books.) And some modern looking furniture was purchased to replace the dark wood sleigh bed set I got as a wedding present. For my first wedding.

(I’ll do a before and after post when the after is more complete.)

In the bathroom, with the new paint and the new bathmats, that old dark hamper seemed sorrowfully out of place.

So I bought a new one.