At some point, the chair became a wardrobe

The trousers were worn for two hours. They are perfectly suitable for another outing, but returning them to the wardrobe feels slightly wrong. The wash basket seems excessive. So they go on the chair, where a jumper has already reached the same conclusion. By Thursday, the chair is holding an entire category of clothing for which the bedroom has made no provision.

This is a remarkably persistent gap in domestic furniture. We buy drawers for folded things and rails for hanging things. Dirty clothes have a basket. Clothes that have been briefly to the shops end up wherever there is a surface. The broad seat of a chair is convenient, until you need to sit down to put on a sock.

Moving the pile to the bed works for several hours. Moving it back at bedtime works for several more. The clothes travel a considerable distance without getting any nearer to a decision. Meanwhile, the chair you liked enough to buy is visible only at the legs.

We would start by giving the between-wears clothes a modest place of their own. The white open rail has room for a small selection, with shoes beneath, and the hanging clothes are easy to see. It also makes the size of the selection rather obvious. A crowded rail can prompt a decision that a soft heap successfully postpones.

There is a visual trade-off. Open storage means looking at clothes, including the practical coat in the colour you would never choose for a bedroom. A rail works best where that does not trouble you, or where there is a corner beside the wardrobe rather than directly opposite the bed. Buying an open rail and then expecting it to look like a closed cupboard seems unfair to everyone involved.

Closed storage deserves some thought too. The Padstow wardrobe's woven fronts give the tall surface a finer texture, and its black base makes a distinct line above the floor. The finish is oak effect. Against the dark wall in our illustration, the pale doors look like an intentional piece of furniture, with a lower drawer for things that need folding.

Clothes which are ready for washing need a route of their own. The white Brabantia bin divides the load into two compartments as it goes in. Where those compartments are useful, they spare the later business of emptying everything onto the floor to sort it. The bin also occupies real floor space, as does the rail; a small bedroom may have room for only one addition, or none at all.

The bench at the foot of the bed is appealing for a different reason. You can sit on it while getting dressed, and a spare throw can go inside. Cream upholstery lightens the darker bed behind it. We would resist filling it with the clothes you mean to reconsider. Hiding that particular pile under a lid would merely make it harder to remember what is in there.

Eventually, the chair emerges. There is a small mark on the seat you had forgotten about, and the jumper at the bottom turns out to be the one you wanted last weekend. You hang it up for tomorrow. Then you sit down to deal with the sock, which has somehow ended up inside out.