At 63, I finally threw out the cracked plastic laundry basket I had hidden behind the door for thirty years

I have never written anything like this before, and I very nearly did not. It is a laundry basket, of all things. But five different friends have now asked me about it, so it seemed easier to just tell everyone at once.

For my whole adult life the laundry basket was the same sort of thing. A wobbly plastic bin, usually cracked at the handle, that lived shoved behind the bathroom door where nobody would see it. It did the job. It was also faintly depressing.

Useful, or lovely. A laundry basket, I had decided, could only ever be useful.

So I hid it, the way we all hide the ugly-but-necessary things, and never once thought there might be another option.

I did not choose that on purpose. Nobody decides their home should have an ugly corner. It just happens, one practical plastic bin at a time.

How it happens

The useful things for the home are almost always the ugly ones. Storage in particular seems to come in exactly two sorts. Cheap plastic that looks it, or expensive designer pieces that cost more than the washing inside them.

So you buy the plastic, you hide it, and you quietly accept that the practical corners of your home are simply not allowed to be nice.

And a little joylessness in the everyday adds up over the years, more than you would think.

What I had wrong

Here is the bit I got most wrong. I had assumed a laundry basket that was actually pretty would be flimsy, or precious, or wildly dear.

It is none of those. It is properly quilted, thick and structured, so it stands up on its own even when empty and does not sag into a heap. It has sturdy handles that make carrying it up the stairs easy. And it is covered, all the way around, in the loveliest hand-stitched designs.

Useful and lovely, in the same basket. That is the combination I had decided did not exist, and it took me until 63 to find it.

It is made by a woman called Sue

It is from Ginny & Co, a small British boutique that has been quietly making the home a bit lovelier for a few years now.

The baskets are made by a woman called Sue. She is seventy-one, and she lives in a stone cottage in Hawes, at the edge of the Yorkshire Dales, with a window that looks out over the same sheep fields she has been stitching for twenty-eight years. She started in 1998, the year she lost her husband Bill, when a neighbour took her along to a quilting group to fill the quiet evenings. That first little hand-stitched sheep changed everything.

No machine. No factory. No two are ever quite the same, because Sue does not work from a pattern. She works from what she sees outside her window that morning — sheep, foxes, owls, hedgehogs, wildflower meadows. It comes in nine designs, and in three sizes, which is rather how I ended up with more than one.

The quilting is soft but structured, so it holds its shape whether it is full of towels or completely empty. The handles are properly stitched, so it carries easily up the stairs. And the little hand-stitched designs are so pretty that it looks like something from a smart home shop rather than a chore waiting to happen.

Mine lives in the bathroom for the washing, but they are roomy enough for anything — towels, throws, toys, blankets, or a corner of the sitting room that needed tidying. That is really all there is to it. It is not complicated. It is just a useful thing that somebody bothered to make beautiful — by hand.

What happened when David saw it

I had it sitting out in the bathroom, in the open for the first time in my life.

My husband David spotted it and assumed I had paid a fortune for it at one of those interiors places in town. I let him think that for a good minute. Two friends have asked since, and one has already ordered her own.

What struck me, though, was how much such a small thing changed a corner of the house. A job I used to hide now looks cheerful, out in the open, and I find I do not mind the washing quite as much. I bought a second one for the bedroom.

Three things I have learned since

One. Structured is what makes it look dear. Because the quilting holds its shape and stands on its own, it looks like a proper piece rather than a slouchy bag in the corner.

Two. The handles matter more than you would think. Sturdy, well-stitched handles turn carrying a full load up the stairs from a struggle into nothing at all.

Three. The useful corners are allowed to be nice. One pretty basket made me realise how much of the house I had quietly given up on, and I am slowly putting that right.

About the price

I want to be straightforward about this, because it was the thing that made me suspicious.

Sue's baskets are £89.95. They were £179.90. And right now there is a buy one, get one free offer on — so that is two of Sue's baskets, any two designs you like.

My first thought, honestly, was that a basket this pretty and this well made would cost a fortune, because the ones in the smart interiors shops certainly do. And there is free delivery, with a 30-day money-back guarantee, so there was nothing to lose by trying one.

There is no catch that I have found. They are a small boutique selling directly, so there is nobody taking a cut in the middle. And because Sue is setting down her needle for good, these really are the last she will ever make — once they are gone, they are gone. I did what I imagine you are doing now and went and read the reviews before I ordered my second. Just over eight hundred of them, sitting at 4.8 stars. The same things kept coming up. One woman had written, "My granddaughter won't go to bed without naming every animal on it first. I have bought three." That was the one that decided it for me.

What I would tell you if we were friends

If you and I were sat in the garden with a cup of tea and you asked me, this is what I would say.

If you have an ugly plastic bin you keep shoving behind a door and meaning to replace, it is worth ten minutes of your evening to go and look.

Not because a laundry basket changes anything. It does not. But a small corner of the house being cheerful instead of hidden is a nicer way to live, and it is a very small price for that.

The buy one, get one free offer is on at the moment, they come in nine designs in small, medium and large, and because these are the very last baskets Sue will ever make, once they are gone, they are gone for good.

The laundry basket is out in the open now, and I do not mind the washing half as much.

Jessica

Buy one, get one free on now. These are the last baskets Sue will ever make — when they're gone, they're gone.