We all crave the sense of order that a well-organised house can bring. It is why we look longingly at the practical yet pretty ‘back-of-house’ areas often featured by House & Garden, where modern appliances are combined with smart tiles, bespoke joinery and charming over-head drying racks. As Elizabeth Metcalfe wrote in her ode to laundry rooms, they have become something of a ‘a middle-class fantasy’ or ‘the marker of becoming a “proper” grown-up’.
But what is the use in having a perfect laundry room if you don’t have a proper place to store everything afterwards? While clothes are neatly hung in wardrobes or stacked in chests of drawers, household linens are too often neglected. Linen cupboards are the sensible solution and they can be incorporated into your home with relative ease, regardless of how much space you have available.
Far from a new-fangled invention, linen cupboards have played an important role in households – particularly in Europe – since the 17th and 18th centuries. The tall, freestanding cupboards were built to store bed linen and table linen, often with shelving at the top and drawers below. They ranged from simple wooden designs to elaborately carved pieces that were symbols of wealth and status, and of the superior quality of the linens within. These pieces were commonly known as linen presses, or simply presses, as they helped to keep linens flat and pristine after ironing. There was also such a thing as a pressing machine that used a screw mechanism to compress and flatten linens, but the term linen press has long been used to denote the storage cupboard.
Today, we might be more familiar with the notion of a built-in linen cupboard, a close relation to the airing cupboard (which usually includes a heat source for drying). Built-in, or even walk-in, linen cupboards still fulfil their original purpose – storage – but the focus tends to be on bed linen and towels rather than table linen, which might not be needed as frequently and is often stored closer to the kitchen or dining room.
Organisation, organisation, organisation: that is the beauty of the linen cupboard. ‘There are few things as satisfying as putting sheets, pillowcases and towels away in a place that has been specifically designed for them,’ says Joanna Plant, who likes to incorporate linen cupboards into her projects where possible. ‘This kind of well-planned storage gives a sense of order to the household that should not be underestimated. Just as we have seen a rise in pantries and sculleries, so too the linen cupboard is now considered a priority.’ Anna Haines agrees: ‘A linen cupboard is like the backstage manager of your home. It is not often in plain sight, yet it is completely essential, and the reason everything looks so effortlessly tidy.’
A properly organised linen cupboard can make bed-changing a breeze, and prevents that desperate, last-minute hunt for spare sheets and towels before overnight guests arrive. When discussing his design for a Regency house in Norfolk, Veere Grenney emphasised the particular importance of linen cupboards in larger properties. ‘There are eight bedrooms in this house and if you’re going to use it every weekend, filling it with friends and children, guess what? The linen cupboards have to be enormous,’ he says.
There is a sustainable element, too, because the more carefully things are stored, the longer they will last. Linen cupboards can help to keep things fresh, wrinkle-free and even protected from damage caused by light, dust and moisture in the longer term. If you used to admire the contents of your grandmother’s linen cupboard as a child, you might well have noticed the incredible condition of many of the decades-old pieces it housed.
‘I will happily sacrifice part of a room, or even an entire room, to make way for a linen cupboard,’ says Joanna, ‘although even a small space under the stairs can be useful if carefully thought about’. Rita Konig converted her cellar shower room into a laundry room with a walk-in-linen cupboard. However, if space is at a premium, or you live in a flat without stairs, freestanding might be the way to go. ‘We look for antique housekeepers’ cupboards – a wonderfully generous piece of furniture that will sit happily in a spare room or on a landing,’ adds Joanna. Similarly Anna recommends ‘a slim housekeeper’s cupboard or a chest of drawers that can fit into an awkward alcove or on a landing if you don’t have the room height, and a linen press works really well in a bedroom or hallway’.
‘Antique linen presses can be a fantastic way to store bed linens. We placed one on the upstairs landing in a recent Devon country house project. It sat beautifully in the space, adding more character where a fitted piece might have felt too formal,’ says Kate Cox of HÁM Interiors, echoing the preference for freestanding pieces expressed in the studio’s dos and don’ts of decorating. ‘An ottoman at the end of the bed can be equally effective,’ Kate continues. ‘We often design fabric-covered versions that work both as seating and as smart storage.’
Fourth-generation antiques dealer Will Green extols the virtues of older examples. ‘There’s no doubt the quality of antique presses is far superior to that of most modern alternatives,’ he says. ‘More importantly, though, I do find the feeling of opening a creaking Georgian mahogany door quite magical.’ He also notes their versatility: ‘Clients often ask me to remove the slides of our presses and install aged brass hanging poles, which we’re happy to do. However, we do insist that they keep the slides, just in case they change their mind.’
If you’re fitting out an existing cupboard or room, both Joanna and Anna recommend slatted shelves for proper air circulation. Anna regularly has these made from cedar, ‘which smells wonderful’, and Joanna likes to add ‘little brass label holders so that you aren’t scrabbling around for a super-king sheet when you need one’. Anna has also found that ‘deep shelves are useful but not too deep, and flexible shelving height will help to accommodate bulkier items as well as pillowcases’. For an all-singing, all-dancing set-up, Anna is partial to a pull-out shelf for folding and sorting, and pull-out baskets for smaller items. And the consensus is, if you can position your linen cupboard close to the bedrooms, it prevents too much running around when changing beds.
In terms of modern freestanding pieces, there are plenty of options out there, including Neptune’s handsome ‘Chichester Housekeeper’s Cupboard’ and Chelsea Textiles’ ‘Linen Press Cupboard’. If you’re looking for an antique linen press, Will Green has some words of wisdom. ‘Good presses were made throughout the second half of the 18th and first half of the 19th centuries without a huge variation in fundamental design,’ he says. ‘Personally, I like the 1760-1780 and 1830-1850 periods: the former for its elegant Georgian design and soft patina that often builds up on pieces of this age, and the latter for its incredible quality (the brassware in particular saw a huge jump in quality throughout the mid 19th century). I would always recommend looking for presses of a simple and functional design, as they don’t need to impress anyone too much.’
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It is worth keeping an eye on Will Green’s website for linen (or clothes) presses as he often has beautiful examples for sale, like this George III mahogany piece. Auctions are another good source, as are online marketplaces such as 1stDibs, which usually has a wide range of designs from simple cupboards to decorative hand-carved and hand-painted pieces. And there are sometimes bargains to be had on Ebay or Facebook Marketplace.
Regardless of its age, style or arrangement, the practical benefits of a linen cupboard are truly timeless. ‘I don’t think a linen cupboard will ever be outdated,’ says Anna. ‘It is an interior staple and an unsung modern-day hero, especially in homes where clever storage is key, which is almost all!’ Once you experience the joys of a linen cupboard first-hand, you will never want to live without one.
