Some insist that glasses and mugs should be stored right side up, while others strongly believe that storing glasses and mugs upside down is the only way to make sure they're clean and free of dust. But there is a right way to store glasses and mugs — sort of — according to an expert.
People have a lot of strong opinions on how to store glassware. Some insist that glasses and mugs should be stored right side up, while others strongly believe that storing glasses and mugs upside down is the only way to make sure they're clean and free of dust.Hi, you don't know me, but may I please store some glassware at your house? I promise I'll place it in the right direction, whatever that happens to mean in your home, because I really have no particular feelings on the matter, just habits — but other people do. Oh, they really do, and I'm so happy for them. It's great to have an emotional investment in matters of the household (so long as you're not a militant weirdo about it and don't use it as an excuse to rain terror upon and insult people who were raised differently from you) because it shows you still have the capacity to care about something, and that's lovely.I'm also creepily passionate about old housekeeping and etiquette books and the advice therein, so when my colleagues were having a rousing discussion about the right way to store glassware — with the rim facing up or down — I went running pell-mell to my bookshelves.In addition to retroactively unnerving counsel on patching your china with white lead and polishing glassware with fuller’s earth, the consensus amongst self-proclaimed housekeeping experts and authors of books like Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers and The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, Adapted to the Use of Private Families is that the storage orientation should generally be dictated by two things: the frequency of use of each kind of glassware, and the kind of shelving you have. If your shelves are behind doors, which shield the items from dust, bugs, spatter, and the like, rim-side-up is fine.