Help me find my clothing

April 14, 2010 3:21 AM

Help me find a lamp that will allow me to see my clothing.

Many, many days of my adult life have begun with me systematically flinging item after item of black clothing out of my dresser drawer in an effort to find some particular black tank top or pair of tights or running shorts, etc.

I find it infuriating, but I've never done anything about it. Today's the day!

I'm looking for a lighting solution that will let me find my clothing, will look nice (I want to avoid one of those gooseneck office-y looking things, which is largely why this problem hasn't been solved before) and that I can order online (I don't want to take a trip to Ikea.) I'm looking for something smallish and flexible, that casts good non-fluorescent light that I can direct to find a black tank top in a dimly lit room.

Other solutions have been exhausted: there is already a regular lamp with a shade on top of the dresser, but the drawers themselves are in shadow and you can't move the lamp because of some electrical logistical problems, so I'm really looking for a lamp.

posted by A Terrible Llama to home & garden (15 answers total)

Why don't you put a natural bulb in your ceiling light?
posted by devnull at 3:38 AM on April 14, 2010

How about one of those closet lightbulbs that are small? Maybe even hide it in the drawer?
posted by cestmoi15 at 3:53 AM on April 14, 2010

How about one of those battery lamps with the strap you put around your head.
You can pretend you're engaged in sock-related espionage.
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 4:22 AM on April 14, 2010 [3 favorites]

Aside from the obvious suggestion to use a flashlight, what's your budget here?

I mean, I'm partial to this lamp, but I can't afford it.
posted by dfriedman at 4:32 AM on April 14, 2010

Hrm. Like this or this or this? Most adjustable lamps you'll find will be either gooseneck or the pivoting drafting style.

DaughterR had a similar problem, and we wound up putting a track light like this on the ceiling above the dresser drawers. .
posted by jlkr at 4:33 AM on April 14, 2010

Why don't you put a natural bulb in your ceiling light?

No ceiling light, plus we're picky about lighting anyway so a big glaring ceiling bulb first thing in the morning would be hard to take.

LMDBA--if I don't throw all the clothing on the floor, generally I go with a flashlight-in-my-mouth option but worse comes to worse I can invest in an Ace bandage and strap it to my head. That would take care of the aesthetic concerns.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 4:35 AM on April 14, 2010

Aside from the obvious suggestion to use a flashlight, what's your budget here?

I mean, I'm partial to this lamp, but I can't afford it.


Yeah, woah. We want to keep it under $2600, by which I mean, like $100. I might pay a little more because I do want it to look nice and I've put up with this for a couple decades, so I might be willing to invest a little more to resolve a long-standing problem, but not much.

I just don't want to be eighty years old holding a flashlight in my mouth and rifling through my drawers to find support hose., bitching the entire time about how I can't see anything.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 4:39 AM on April 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

Drawer lights?
posted by Lyn Never at 5:33 AM on April 14, 2010 [2 favorites]

I have the same problem - my clothing is 90% black and there's bad lighting around my bureau.

Because I can't light my drawers, I use tons of drawer dividers and separate everything into the smallest possible groupings (e.g. tank tops, nice t-shirts, work t-shirts, 3/4 sleeve shirts, turtlenecks....) Instead of stacking the clothing on top of each other, I roll up everything, so it's displayed vertically between the dividers. This doesn't totally alleviate the issue, but at least I am only going through 5 black tank tops or 5 black t-shirts, instead of a black sea of clothing.
posted by suki at 5:45 AM on April 14, 2010

Is part of the problem that your partner is still asleep while you're rummaging through your drawers?
posted by electroboy at 6:30 AM on April 14, 2010

Is there anyplace that you could attach a battery-powered LED? Perhaps a directional one that swivels? (this may be similar to LynNever's drawer lights, but that link dind't open for me)
posted by aimedwander at 6:30 AM on April 14, 2010

One of my favourite ebay categories is collectables/lighting.

Watch out for funky old adjustable lamps at reasonable prices. Run a search and keep it as a rrs feed until you see something you like.
posted by bonobothegreat at 6:39 AM on April 14, 2010

I solved the problem by hanging everything in the closet instead.
posted by MexicanYenta at 6:51 AM on April 14, 2010

instead of the ace bandaged flashlight-to-the-head, why not just a headlamp?
posted by msconduct at 10:26 AM on April 14, 2010

Whatever lamp you get, using a "daylight" bulb will help you see the slight differences in your black clothing. (Says the person who often used to wear one grayish-black with another bluish-black or brownish-black sock.)
posted by peagood at 11:40 AM on April 14, 2010