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Housekeeping

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Original poster

Is it just me or do you have a hierarchy of mugs?

150 replies

BellaBearisWideAwake · 21/03/2011 13:44

And is it something you share or do you seethe when someone helps themselves to the wrong tier?

eg mugs you don't mid being taken outside/mugs for builders

mugs just for real coffee

mugs only YOU can use

or is it just me?

OP posts:

annapolly · 21/03/2011 18:27

"OMG a mug, really a mug, you will be drinking out of a bucket next."

This is the first thing my MIl ever said to me, I should have run for the hills.

8 mugs all white bone china. Workman get the Easter egg mugs.

stealthsquiggle · 21/03/2011 18:27

I just took photos of my so-precious-it-can't-actually-be-used mug, to see if any fellow mug fetishist enthusiast could find one the same shape, size (and ideally colour) which is replaceable, and could therefore be actually used. Unfortunately my crappy waste of money card reader isn't working, so I can't upload the photo, and DH would give me the look to end all looks if I asked him to transfer a photo of a mug to a memory stick [frustrated]

TaudrieTattoo · 21/03/2011 18:29

I have the Le Creuset ones!

I love them. DH chipped one and I drove 40miles to replace it.

MmeLindt · 21/03/2011 18:29

Can you describe it, Stealth?

TaudrieTattoo · 21/03/2011 18:32

Bridgewater mugs break if you look at em, ime.

stealthsquiggle · 21/03/2011 18:35

MmeL - it is basically a pot-bellied mug, but smaller than some I have seen - just pleasingly hand-sized (as in you can cup both hands round it) and is glazed with what I think is known as cobalt blue. It is earthenware, but not massively thick. Does that make any sense at all? Of course it's real value is in who made it, but I would love to be able to use one which is reminiscent of it.

Original poster

BellaBearisWideAwake · 21/03/2011 18:58

A friend used to have two mugs which had a snail and a frog in the bottom which was gradually revealed as you drank the tea. They were given to someone drinking tea in their house for the first time. It was a test to see when you first mentioned it. With the frog one it was the eyes that were revealed first.

OP posts:

GothAnneGeddes · 21/03/2011 19:14

Expat - Did you ever start a decluttering thread? Would love to read it.

CoffeeInTheMorning · 21/03/2011 19:19

We have about three dozen mugs, plus a set of small French "proper coffee" cups.

The mugs definitely have a hierarchy. A few are our standard "rice measuring" mug, some came with Easter eggs; we have huge "hot chocolate" ones which OH hates but I keep for the kids having hot chocolate, and one which is the designated mug for a mate of my son's who lived with us for 18 months. Then there are the ones I got from Yorkshire Tea with tokens, mugs we did for fundraising ventures where the picture has almost faded to nothing, and the Penguin Books Wuthering Heights mug that got smashed to pieces and mended with a lethal cocktail of glues by the aforementioned son's mate. There are the mugs that OH had when I met him a quarter of a century ago. There are chipped mugs we can't bear to throw away that hide when visitors or parents visit, and the precious mugs that never get used in case they get broken.

The best one is the Wuthering Heights one, but the old Lion King one is a secret favourite.

expatinscotland · 21/03/2011 19:24

I was on the Ramekin Intervention thread, Goth :o.

I don't own any ramekins. I use IKEA tealight holders, which also double as, well, tealight holders.

I have six of the 'coffee cups' of these, purchased over a number of birthdays and Christmases as I love it.

I'm now working on the tea cups and saucers.

Honestly, find a pattern you love, get a full set and chuck all your other crap stuff.

GetOrfMoiLand · 21/03/2011 19:37

Le Creseut mugs - buy 2 get one free at the Le Creuset outlet shops, so three mugs for a tenner.

I have got 6 and I am going to collect the colours I am missing.

MummyMoonshadow · 21/03/2011 19:37

our lemsip mugs (and I realise now that I too have one skulking, so it is not just Dh) are chunky, stoneware artisan mugs that have to be hand washed. His has his name on it in clay; mine has a handle in the shape of a dragon. This allows the (beautiful) mugs to stay where the rule is 'if it can't go in the dishwasher it hasn't earnt a space in this tiny kitchen'.

Strangely my chololate mug is quite a civilised affair - all tall and white and slender with a tiny handle.

The only matching mugs we have in the entire house are a pair of denby ones I got when I was a bridesmaid. All others are individuals and earn their own cupboard space...or not :)

fromheretomaternity · 21/03/2011 20:08

Yes yes yes... And if dh does something to annoy me, he gets a mug way down the bottom of the scale as a form of silent retaliation.

GwendolineMaryLacey · 21/03/2011 20:16

We used to have the frog mug when I was a kid. Scared the shit out of my cousin, particularly as it resembled a turd... :)

Original poster

BellaBearisWideAwake · 21/03/2011 20:28

The test was how polite the person was and so whether they would keep drinking without saying anything

OP posts:

Original poster

BellaBearisWideAwake · 21/03/2011 20:29

Lol at silent punishment of lower tier mug

OP posts:

piratecat · 21/03/2011 20:31

I have mug which is dark for coffee.

I have four mugs from tesco lovely light porcelain ones for tea.

You are not allowed to put coffee in my tea mugs.
end of!!!

irregularegular · 21/03/2011 20:32

No, I'm fussier than you lot. All my mugs match. I hate mismatched mugs.

We still have our old mugs hidden away just in case we suddenly need a lot more mugs, but they are out of sight so they don't offend me.

Plus the children have their own mugs.

expatinscotland · 21/03/2011 20:35

Get rid of mismatched mugs! Life is too short for useless clutter in your life.

I'm willing to allow each child to chose his/her own mug, the eldest is just now old enough.

But it needs to be tasteful :o.

colditz · 21/03/2011 20:37

I have a red mug with pottery wine gums all over it - that's MY mug. Nobody else gets it unless they are a dear dear friend AND it's the only clean one AND they really want it AND they are having tea. No coffee may be put in this mug.

I have white mugs with black flowers on. These are 'generic tea mugs"

I have two coffee mugs - my boyfriend's, which is a Homer head, which I will put tea in and drink from when I miss him, and The Other One, which is small, white and has a green leaf on it.

I have two Creme Egg mugs, and these are for hot chocolate, and at a very hard push, coffee.

I also have one white porcelain mug at my boyfriend's house, this has pink roases on and he is banned from touching it. I wash it and hide it when I leave. He still finds it and makes gravy in it

colditz · 21/03/2011 20:39

Should add - the white mug with the green leaf is definitely the black sheep.

Shallishanti · 21/03/2011 20:43

but what is the future of your mug hierarchy?

see, I have this fantasy that at some point in the future (eg when dcs all grown up and left home) I'll be able to have ONLY mugs that I really like and the hierarchy will be a thing of the past. All those mugs that I feel faintly dissappointed if I get will be gone.

But this is a bit bonkers really because actually its only me and dp who use mugs, so really there's no reason not to realise my fantasy straight away.

Mercedes519 · 21/03/2011 20:44

irregular I'm with you with matching mugs but I'm worried because a)matchy matchy is a very un-MN thing and b) it doesn't work because we keep being given/acquiring random mugs in singles.

And I compounded it by buying DH a mug with Alison Hannigan on it for our wedding anniversary.

The horror of random mugs

But I can't believe noone has questioned MrsKarwash and her Keanu Reeves mug I randomly found in the road...

pointydog · 21/03/2011 20:48

I have my own individual hierarchy of mugs which drives everyone else insane. It has only developed fairly recently and is a sign of my peri-menopause, I am sure.

I have a favourite cup for coffee and a second favourite for coffee.

I have a faviourite mug for tea and a second favourite.

I ask people to change cup/mug if they pick the wrong one.

pointydog · 21/03/2011 20:48

I wish we didn't keep acquiring mugs, but we do. All of us bar dh. Ugly most of them.

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