36 
House & Garden 
THE 
CLOSET 
COMPLEX 
Showing that Closets , Being Symbols of Domestic TVealth, Are the Real 
Reason for Spring Cleaning and Its Little Sister Spring Furnishing 
S PRING cleaning is the annual nightmare in most American 
households—that, and its little sister spring furnishing. One 
looks forward to it with dread, the male of the species just as much as 
the female. For both it means work, endless confusion and eventually 
having to get acclimated to new surroundings. Granted that the mop is 
mightier than the sword, we ought to be able, by now, to evolve a way 
of "doing spring cleaning and refurnishing without making the home 
look like Kansas after a cyclone has gotten through with it. At least, 
we can get our philosophy straight on these matters, we can think them 
out in an orderly fashion even though disorder must accompany their 
accompl i shrnent. 
As this is being written by a man, with the hope that some men 
may read it, it is not placing too much of the onus on women to say 
that both spring cleaning and spring furnishing are expressions of femi¬ 
nine tendencies. 
Between women and closets is a definite and marked affinity. 
Something in the tissue make-up of a woman finds sympathetic relation¬ 
ship with the make-up of a closet. Perhaps one of these days Havelock 
Ellis or W. L. George can be persuaded to turn upon this problem his 
searching comprehension of women. 
Why is it that, when a woman is shown house plans, she condemns 
them forthwith if not enough closets are provided? Why is it that she 
will forego a beautiful view, high ceilings and a three-years’ lease on a 
remarkable apartment if the closets do not suit her? Why is it, when 
she comes into a hotel bedroom, the first thing she does is to look around 
and ask, “Where is the closet?” 
These are searching questions. 
T HE passion for changing things about, for taking things from 
one place and putting them in another finds the peak of its ex¬ 
pression in spring house cleaning. It is even a more persistent passion 
than the desire for domestic cleanliness. 
The feminine person who guides my destinies in this present incar¬ 
nation gave me, shortly after marriage, a strange clue to the secret of 
this closet complex. She asked me to get her several large, strong 
clothes boxes. After much trouble I managed to procure them. Then 
my woes commenced. 
She calls it “regulating”. It consists in taking things from one box 
or drawer and putting them into another. It attacks her regularly in 
Spring and Fall and almost invariably on holidays when I do not have 
to go to the office and count on having a quiet day at home to read. She 
starts by looking for a handkerchief, the casual handkerchief that any¬ 
one could pick from a top bureau drawer blindfolded. The handker¬ 
chief will suggest a piece of lace somewhere. She searches for the lace 
and in searching for it needs must turn over a pile of underwear. Turn¬ 
ing over the pile of underwear gives her the notion that perhaps the 
underwear might be handier in the second drawer where the blouses are. 
Shifting the blouses dowm from the second to the third drawer gives her 
a like notion about stockings. In a few minutes the regulating is going 
full blast and chaos has descended upon her habiliments and mine. 
Thereafter the household knows no peace. 
I am called from my book at a crucially interesting point and asked 
to help take down those boxes from the top shelf of the closet. She 
spreads them out in piles around my chair and begins shifting the con¬ 
tents of one into the other and vice versa. Apologetically she asks me 
to print new labels for them, and, seeing that the day is ruined, I ac¬ 
quiesce with Christian meekness. 
You see, I made a great mistake the first time she had an attack 
of spring regulating. In a frivolous moment I wrote the labels in 
alleged free verse. Of course I’ve had to do it ever since. Things like 
This doth contain, 
Much to my soul’s wonder and her amazement, 
None else than 
The relic of last winter’s purple tricotine skirt 
And three silk knickers, rosy as the dawn, 
A brassiere with lace and 
My immortal flannel trousers. 
By nightfall on regulating days I’ve usually out-Amyed Amy 
Lowell and all the free verse poets. The story forgotten, I turn my wits 
to writing epitaphs that read after this fashion— 
Beneath This Lid Lyeth 
Until The Last Day 
A Velvet Evening Frock 
Of Pale Blue 
Ruined By A Taxi Door 
Born 1920—Died 1921 
“And They Rent Their Garments 
I know no other way to cure this passion for spring cleaning 
than to provide the mistress of the house with an unconscionable num¬ 
ber of closets and boxes, to humor her when the spring urge comes, to 
accept it as part and parcel of the mystery of marital life. 
TT T HILE spring furnishing is akin to spring cleaning, in that 
VV one engenders the other, there seems to be more logic about 
changing the house over. It is a reflection of the change that comes 
over the face of Nature in the springtime, the urge for lightness, color, 
open spaces and the breath of the outdoors. Some are fortunate enough 
to have both town and country houses, and with them spring furnishing 
constitutes one sort of a problem. Those of us who are tethered to one 
spot find that spring furnishing means an entirely different kind of 
experience. The country house may merely require a little renovating, 
a freshening up of curtains and rugs, a new chair here, an added piece 
of terrace furniture there; but in the suburban home where one remains 
the year ’round it taxes the ingenuity to make an entirely new appearing 
house for summer months. 
People tire of their homes because they tire of the things in their 
homes—the same chair in the same position, the same curtains week 
after week, the same piano in the same old corner. We need a change 
every so often in the house. We ought to take a day off and shift the 
furniture around in the living room, banish a chair or two that we’re 
tired of looking at, hide some of the ornaments, throw a new cover over 
the sofa, turn the piano around another way. It is amazing what a 
difference such little changes make in a room. And if they can be done 
in one room, they can be done in the entire house. 
S PRING furnishing means spring elimination. In wintertime we 
may enjoy the close and intimate touch of many objects and pieces 
of furniture; in summer we crave the coolness and freedom of open spaces. 
Now in order to accomplish this, we needs must have a place to 
hide away those things we temporarily discard. And that brings us back 
to the closet. The closet, then, lies at the bottom of successful spring 
furnishing. 
The closet is the symbol of domestic wealth. Possessing many and 
generous closets assumes that we have many things to put away in them. 
This must be the reason why women prefer closets to views, why they 
would rather have fifty-five hooks in an orderly row than all the 
eighteen-foot ceilings in the world. 
