Realistic Linen Closet Organization

This post was underwritten by Samsill, but opinions about their products are completely mine!

When you are figuring outhow to organize your home, your linen closet is one area youll want to tackle right away. Linen closet organization projects usually take less than a day to complete, and the results are something youll be able to enjoy for a long time.

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• Linen Closet Organization with Baskets
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How to Get Started

Before beginning, its a good idea to gather some ideal linen closet ideas for inspiration, and then take a realistic look at the linen closet you already have.

When you open up your linen closet, what do you see? If youre like most people, you see a jumble of sheets, towels, toiletries, and maybe a random fan or humidifier.

Linen closets are often a catch-all for extra items, and we just dont pay that much attention to them. And, if youre dealing with a basic closet with wire shelves, it can be difficult to find linen closet storage that works for your space.

Our linen closet had gotten particularly bad. In fact, I found myself avoiding opening the linen closet because every time I did, things would fall out of it.

Although I organized it when we first moved into this house, I hadnt done much to maintain it. The fact that Im terrible at folding fitted sheets didnt help the overall appearance of the closet either.

Linen Closet Organizer Necessities

I finally decided that I needed to do something about the closet because I wanted guests to be able to go into it and help themselves to sheets, towels, etc. I considered investing in some pretty baskets, but they are so expensive. I also wanted something more versatile.

We will probably be moving again soon, so I didnt want to invest a lot of money into baskets that might not work in our next home. I wanted to do something to make the linen closet space prettier, but didnt want to purchase anything that would be a permanent solution for that specific space.

Keeping the need for flexible storage in mind, I followed these steps for linen closet organization:

Linen Closet Organization Procedure

1. Take a before photo. This mainly served as motivation. I didnt know how long this project would take, but if I got discouraged, I wanted to be able to look back at what the linen closet looked like before, so I could see some progress.
   

   An empty linen closet. Full of possibilities!

2. Take everything out of the closet. This took forever, and I was surprised to find many of the random things Ive shoved into the closet over the past year. Who knew this little linen closet could hold so much stuff?
3. Declutter. For me, this was a huge, multi-step undertaking. There was drama and indecision, but it eventually got done.
   1. Sheets.We had enough sheets to start our own bed and breakfast. I decided to only keep 2-3 sets of sheets for each bed in our house. Eventually Id like to get down to just two sets per bed. The rest of the sheets were donated.
   2. Towels. We have quite the collection of old towels. They come in handy when our little ones are sick, so we didnt want to get rid of them. I chose the best of the best old towels, and moved them closer to our childrens bedrooms. The rest were donated.
   3. HUGE beach towels. I saved one for each person in our family, and moved them to under-the-bed storage in our guest room. The rest of the gigantic towels were donated.
   4. Medicines. We had a lot of expired medications. I put those in a separate box, and hid them on a high up shelf. The next time theres a medication disposal event, Im there!
   5. Containers. We had a lot of cardboard boxes we were using for storage. Most of them were recycled. Some of our other storage containers were moved to the garage or used in other parts of our house.
4. Beautify. We rent our home, so painting or wallpapering isnt an option. However, I still wanted to do something to make the linen closet a little prettier. I ended up buying some pretty wrapping paper, and I hung it in the back of the linen closet using painters tape. That way, it will be easy to remove when we move to a new house, and I wont have to worry about marking up the awesome beige paint inside the closet.
   

   The Pop n Store Mega Box.

5. Organize with containers. As I mentioned before, I wanted to use containers to consolidate and organize our linens. I also wanted something that would hide the fact that I cannot fold a fitted sheet to save my life. I used pretty white Pop n Store Mega box containers to store like items. I particularly liked the Pop n Store boxes because
   1. I can keep sheets of the same size all in one container. No more folding and unfoldingsimilar sheets to see what size they are. And, since the sheets are in a container, I dont have to spend a lot of time trying to fold them perfectly.
   2. They keep things from getting dusty. We dont change out our guest room sheets that often, and after a while, they get dusty. I put a scented sachet in each box to prevent any musty smells.
   3. They are versatile, sturdy, and easy to move. I can easily pull them out and move them from room to room. If we dont have a linen closet in our next home, I know Ill be able to use the Pop n Store boxes in different locations in our home. Or, I could repurpose them all together. Theyre neutral, yet pretty, so theyd work in a lot of different situations.
   4. They are compact when folded down. If I dont need to use them for a while, or if I need to save space when were moving, I can fold them down, and they wont take up a lot of space like plastic bins or baskets would.
6. Label. Because all of my boxes are white, I labeled them to make it easy to find what Im looking for. I used name tag stickers {similar to these}, and I thought they ended up looking really cute. If I need to change whats inside the box, I can easily remove the sticker and replace it with a new one.
7. Arrange according to frequency of use. I tried to make the things we need most often easily accessible. Toiletries were stored up higher so they were out of reach for little hands.

Now our linen closet is organized and pretty! I actually like to open it up, and its motivated me to do laundry more quickly so I can put towels away and see the organized space. Yes, this is strange behavior, and its most likely a temporary condition

I also love that I can recreate a similar system for organizing our linen closet when we move to our new home. The wrapping paper, linen closet storage bins, and name tag labels are all versatile and easy to usein any home.

Linen Closet Storage Bins

Organizing Toiletries

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