Linen Closet: Organization, Storage and Tips

It is that time of a year again: linen closet decluttering time! How come I stash everything so beautifully and within a month it is back on chaos track again? However, I do have a system in my linen closet. I store linens and bathroom stuff in my linen closet.

Step 1. Remove everything from the shelves or drawers of your linen closet.

It is an important step, because you need a clean slate to rearrange everything there effectively. If you see the remains of the previous linen closet situation, it will be harder for you to focus on cleaning and organizing your linen closet.

Photo courtesy of biix.com

I don’t have a lot of linens, I regularly keep track of them, to make sure I don’t have more than I need or if I need to buy new items. So, when I rearrange the linen closet, I check on the condition of the bedsheet, towels, pillows and comforters. If I see that something is no longer in good condition, I would first repurpose it. For example, with towels, I can cut them and use them additionally as cleaning rags.

Photo courtesy of findinghomefarms.com

Understand how many bedsheet sets you have, as well as towels, and count how many you actually need. The rest is useless, it will only occupy your valuable space.

Photo courtesy of goodhousekeeping.com

Step 2. Find out the measurements of your linen closet.

You need to know the measurements of shelves because sometimes they are not evenly distributed and it influences the size of the baskets that you might need to store linen.

Step 3. Plan out the content of your linen closet.

Depending on the structure of your linen closet, you might have areas where you have more space and less space. Typically, the top shelves have more space, so you can put bulkier items there, like comforters and pillows, you also don’t reach out for them so often as for towels or sheets. If you use your linen storage for bathroom items as well, identify where you want to keep them. The things I use the most are on the comfortable-to-reach level. It should be intuitive.

TIP: If you are using baskets (which is great), labeling takes your organization game to the next level. Especially with seasonal items that I need once in a while and tend to forget where they are. With seasonal items, comforters, and blankets I use vacuum bags because they save so much space and help save the condition of the item. It is super easy to use, you just need your vacuum.

TIP: Under the top shelf I usually put bathroom stuff like toilet paper, cleaning supplies, toiletries etc. I have my favorite cleaning supplies stacked there in case I run out of something and there is a need for emergency cleaning.

Step 4. Fold your linen.

There are three ways on how to organize linen storage: fold, roll and mx and match. Marie Kondo advises to roll everything you can. I like that approach. Because this way everything is visible, especially if you are using transparent baskets, and maximum of space is used.

I organize towels in rolls and fold bed sheets. This is the way that works for me the most, so it is a mix and match approach.

Step 5. Put linen on the shelves.

Voila! This part takes less than 10 minutes usually.