Comments on: Solving the mug clutter problem

By: AlexMMR

AlexMMR — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 00:44:36 +0000

As a potter, I’ve got more mugs than a person can count and they don’t sell fast enough to keep them from completely taking over the house.

If anyone knows where I can donate handmade mugs, I’d sure appreciate the info!

By: Sasha

Sasha — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 09:02:22 +0000

I don’t own very many mugs. In fact, recently I had to force myself to buy more.

By: Melissa

Melissa — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 18:54:11 +0000

I brew coffee in the regretable seventies style “wetbar” in my livingroom. This keeps coffee near the coffee table where I usually drink it. Our kitchen is way too small to host the coffee maker, and it makes the bar into useful space! So I keep the mugs in the cabinet below the wet bar, where a small shelf very near the top of the cabinet is exactly as tall as a coffee mug!

By: Tonya

Tonya — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 04:36:04 +0000

We have 10 mugs. 2 adults drink coffee everyday, then tea later. 1 kiddo sometimes has hot cocoa or tea. They all fit on one shelf in the kitchen, they are all handmade.

That I think makes a huge difference. Handmade by local artists. We know who made them; use them everyday, wash them every night.

No imports. No shoddy chipped mugs. No tacky phrases.
Simple and useful. Lovely and meaningful.

Always trying to find the simple and serene.

By: WilliamB

WilliamB — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 16:04:53 +0000

I have the same problem with large plastic cups (the sort with lids and straws, such as one gets at a ballpark) as with mugs: they accumulate!

I find two mugs per household member to be the right number for me. This is enough both personal use and guests. I find one large plastic cup per person works well.

When the cup & mug shelf gets crowded, I winnow. Sometimes this means storing souvenir cups (opening day is a favorite around here), more often it means donating them.

By: Melanie A.

Melanie A. — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 23:36:20 +0000

Okay, you inspired me to get up and count

Eight mugs for two people, and we really only use six of these. The other two are duplicates of two in active rotation–they were gifts from my dad, who used flattering images of me and Mr. Me on four photo mugs. Great pix–but why four of them?!

Before I figure that out I might figure out how to attach sleeves or sheaths on the existing mugs to make them stackable. Maybe a Java Jacket or the like would work.

By: Rosa

Rosa — Mon, 31 May 2010 03:12:29 +0000

I have four keepsake mugs – my grandmothers coffee mug (yes, she only had one of her own, all the years I knew her) – that one is actually on display, so it’s not used. Then there’s a fancy inlaid teacup I got in Japan; a nicely-shaped mug that my mom gave me; and a chipped, dumb-logoed one from my cubemate at my first longtime job.

I actually use the chipped one the most.

We have lots of people over for dinner & coffee at least 4 times a year; but for that, I use the coffee cups that are part of my good china.

By: Alexander

Alexander — Sun, 30 May 2010 13:36:35 +0000

We cleaned out our mugs just recently, how topical

Our collections of mugs were divided into three piles:
- keepers, which we ended up with a unique cup for each of us, plus two for guests
- tossers, chipped or stained beyond use. We threw these away.
- others: good cups that we didn’t need, which we donated to the workplace. That’s one less disposable cup.

Now we have a rule to get individual cups with character and stories behind them. This way we can replace broken cups one at a time, and they become part of the conversation.

By: Amy

Amy — Sat, 29 May 2010 00:17:06 +0000

My Grandmother left around 30-40 tea cups to me (all different patterns) when she passed a few years ago. Some are good quality china, some are cheaper, but no two cups are the same. I now have them all lined up on shelving as “use-able art” and am adding to the collection as I see fit. Anytime I want a cup of coffee or tea for myself or to share, I pick anything I want! I don’t consider the tea cups clutter, they are art!

By: chs

chs — Fri, 28 May 2010 23:05:15 +0000

In addition to the usual Goodwill-type donation spots, soup kitchens and homeless shelters are often happy to use your donated mugs or cups. For the person who hates throwing things away, I would say donating them is a better use than breaking a perfectly functional item to use for drainage in a plant pot. Someone else could use the mug, and you could put gravel or rocks in your plant pot.

By: Rob O.

Rob O. — Fri, 28 May 2010 14:23:50 +0000

When we moved recently, my wife & I culled out a truckload of miss-matched odd cups & mugs and kept only a set of 6 Ikea stacking cups and a couple of sets that we’d received as wedding gifts. (Yup, we still have cups that were gifts nearly 14 years ago that we use fairly often!)

We also have a couple of Starbucks insulated travel cups that we use almost every morning and just wash them out when we get back home.

By: Marcie Lovett

Marcie Lovett — Fri, 28 May 2010 13:53:39 +0000

So many people I talk to have trouble getting rid of coffee mugs. Like so many other things Erin has written about, it’s important to remember that they’re just things; you’ll still remember the vacation or party or achievement without the mug. I have 8 mugs that came with my set of dishes and three that don’t match but that I find beautiful. This is the perfect number for my household because I wait until the dishwasher is quite full before it runs.

When promotional mugs make their way into my house, they go directly into the donation bag. Any thrift store will gladly take your castoffs.

By: christine

christine — Fri, 28 May 2010 13:49:16 +0000

There are just the two of us, and our house is small (840square ft.), so we keep a setting of four dishes upstairs, and just two mugs. All the rest of the dishes and a large collection of mugs are in lidded plastic bins easily accessible in the basement. We still have them, if we need them for guests or a party, but not having them around keeps us from ending up with stacks of unwashed dishes. Now everything fits neatly in the limited cupboard space.

By: Vi

Vi — Fri, 28 May 2010 13:26:43 +0000

I forgot, soup is good in a mug too.

By: Vi

Vi — Fri, 28 May 2010 13:26:06 +0000

I have about 3 shelves of mugs. One is christmas/winter mugs, another are the smaller mugs which came with my new dishes and the then there are the everyday mugs which actually take a shelve and a 1/8th of a shelf. Fortunately we have lots of cabinet space. Yet it does seem silly to have as many mugs as we do. A few broke and were tossed over the last year and I would toss out a bunch more yet it would be noticed, so I will wait for a few more to become trash worthy and also not buy any more, though most were gifts except for the dozen that came with the 12 piece dish set. I will have to look out for the stackable ones next time I need some. Love my coffee, tea and cocoa.