Lady Diana

My mother sent my grandmother a lot of linen from Ireland and France when we lived in Europe, she stored them in a cedar chest.....the bad part....she said they were too nice to use....you guessed it, all of the linen was ruined....stained from the wood...was on all of the folds of the fabric, nothing was savable.

justducky65

Love the crate! I would definitely use them too.

MargeD

I think I would use a clear polyurethane to seal the wood at least on the inside, then maybe a piece of muslin on the bottom of the shelves. Gee - is DH available? My DH is definitely not that crafty, although my son is, which I hope my DDIL appreciates, but I'm sure she does. She just says he gets a one track mind when he starts a project and gets tunnel vision - although that he definitely gets from his father.

Pepita

I just don't agree with most of the info that is above. Wood, polyurethane, varnish, all are bad for fabric. Yes our ancestors put blankets and quilts in cedar chests. Those quilts often ended up with stains too. I think Ikea has some plastic liners for some of their shelving. I think you would do better seeing if you could get some that would be the size of your shelves. You could turn them on their sides, and put the fabric inside.

quilttiger

How lucky you are to have such BEAUTIFUL wine type crates for storing your fabric....hope your DH made you scads of them. I am for using plastic liners (can be found in a lot of stores) or muslin to protect fabric. Enjoy!

margecam52

You know...with the fabrics upright like that...You really aren't putting them right on the wood really. What you could do...get a couple cans of spray on poly and spray just the inside of the crates...make sure it's the quick drying kind. Easy, peasy. You still get the bug/moth deterant of the cedar, but the fabric won't be in direct contact with the wood.. If you decide not to use the crates...PM me...I'll give you my address to send them to, lol...enjoy the crates!

misseva

I've seen beautiful crocheted table cloths ruined from being stored in a cedar chest. My mom stored things in it too and I don't know how she managed to keep stuff from being damaged.

Prism99

There are several things to know about cedar chest storage of linens. For one thing, older chests can be safer than newer ones because the aged wood secretes less oil and acid. Even so, no cedar chest is safe for direct contact with linens. At the very least, there should be a barrier of muslin between linens and the wood. This barrier is probably not enough to protect linens from damage if left stored for 20 years, but it's probably enough if the chest is opened and the muslin barrier is replaced every year or so.

It is the folds of a quilt that are most likely to be damaged if left in contact with the wood. In the "old days", quilts were routinely removed from cedar chests for use on the beds during the winter months. At least they got relief from contact with the wood for half of every year! Plus, when they were stored again chances are that the fold lines changed and different areas of the quilt were in contact with the wood. This would have minimized any damage from direct contact with the cedar.

Txsuthrn

Wonderful hubby to do that for you!

cashs_mom

Those are awesome. I have some similar crates in my sewing room, but they're the cheap white ones from Home Depot and aren't nearly as pretty as yours.

You have to watch storing things for a long period of time in cedar chests. Cedar wood has oil (which is what keeps the bugs away) and that oil can seep onto whatever is stored in it. My mother always said to wrap things in sheets before putting them in the chest and I've always done that. I wasn't until a few years ago that I learned that that is the best way to store textiles in cedar.