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How to Completely Organize Your Linen Closet

Here is my step by step tutorial on how to organize your linen closet!

We’re on week five, friends! Half way through the challenge! {If you aren’t sure what I’m talking about, then you can read about my ten week organizing challenge here}.

And although I thought this week’s challenge would be an easy one; once again the organizational project grew a little bit larger then I first anticipated.

Yesterday I shared all about how, once I had taken everything out of our closet, I decided that the time was ripe to finally tackle a project that I’ve been wanting to do for years. Switching out our rickety builder-basic wire shelving for solid wood shelves and repainting the whole closet in a fresh, clean, white.

And after purging a good amount of linen closet “stuff” that we never use or no longer need; putting everything back into our freshly updated closet was actually fun.

I know that a lot of people wouldn’t describe putting away linens as fun; but it was! Finally – everything has a spot, it’s labelled, and the linen closet is no longer an overcrowded dark messy hole in the wall!

Yay for small victories, right?!

How To Completely Organize Your Linen Closet graphic.

So let’s get started, shall we? Welcome to WEEK  5!

How to Completely Organize Your Linen Closet

Step One

Take everything out of the closet

All the linen from the closet on the floor to clean it out.

Start by sorting everything into piles of related items. For example, I sorted our bathroom linens into large towels, hand towels, facecloths and bathmats. Then I sorted our bedding into twin bedding and King sized bedding; separating sheets and duvet covers and pillow cases. I also made a separate pile for our summer linens.

Step Two

Assess and PURGE

What do you really need? How many items are old are unused? If you have old stained towels that you don’t use anymore; or too many sets of bedding then it might be time to donate or let go of them. Ask yourself what linens you actually use. Keep them. What linens do you actually love? Keep them. But what linens do you never use? Or that you dislike and keep out of a vague sense of guilt? Then get rid of those things! I got rid of one large bag of unused floor mats and old towels and bedding; and the “old towels” were moved to the laundry closet as they are used for cleaning.

Step Three

Prep your closet

I decided to give ours a fresh coat of paint along with some beautiful new wooden shelves to replace the rickety builder-basic wire shelves that I really couldn’t stand. I shared the full tutorial here.

Wire shelves before and after the shelves are now wooden and painted white.

Even if you don’t want to go to quite this extreme, you might want to give your closet a good cleaning or put  down some new fresh contact paper on old shelves. Set the stage with a fresh and clean slate to put things back into.

Step 4

Corale smaller items in baskets or bins.

Small items like tablecloths and facecloths can get messy when piled up on a shelf, so I decided to group them together in baskets. I also corralled my patterned duvet covers and shams together in a large bin; and the flat sheets that we only rarely use together in another large bin.

Wicker baskets filled with linen.

A wicker basket on the shelf and hand towels beside it.

Blue and white baskets that are labeled for the linen.

Step 5

Put it all back

Fold things as neatly as you can and figure out placement on the shelves. I tried to group items together in a logical way – having one shelf dedicated to towels, and one shelf dedicated to twin bedding, for example.

Folded towels on the shelf.

The closet shelves are neatly organized and labeled.

Step 6

Label!

I used these Martha Stewart adhesive metal bookplate labels to label the shelves as to where items will now live – so much easier to keep it organized this way! I also used some hanging chalkboard labels on the large bins in the bottom of the closet.

Martha Stewart labels.

Make sure you know where things belong; that makes it so much easier for everyone to keep up with your newly organized linen closet!

I’m loving the transformation!

The closet before and the closet after.

The white shelves of the closet and the neatly organized linen.

The closet door is ajar with the linen on the shelves.

The linen closet.

It feels incredible to have this closet space back under control! And to get rid of so many things that we really and truly weren’t using and no longer needed.

Are you tackling this project at your house?

Here are some amazing – organizing tools that you might need!

Want to remember this?

This is awesome! Pin it to remember it!

How To Completely Organize Your Linen closet poster.

 

To check out the rest of the projects and ideas in this 10 week organizing series, head to my original challenge post:

Get Organized once and for all!! with this ten week plan for how to organize everything in your entire house!

 

Join the challenge!

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17 Comments

  1. Where did you get the wooden shelves? I’m have trouble finding ones that will fit perfectly in my linen closet.

    1. Hi Stephanie,
      We built ours to fit – super easy! You can read my full tutorial here:
      Hope that helps!
      Krista

  2. Looks great! Puts me in the mood to start organizing mine. I do however absolutely have to have the folded edge of my towels facing out so I could not to my bath towels like yours. I also fold my sheets sets together and put them into one of the pillowcases from the set. Need a bedding change? Grab and go and it’s all together.

  3. I have such a hard time organizing. Ugh. What do you do with old sheets and comforters that are to icky for donations? Just put them in the regular trash? I just don’t feel good about doing that.

    1. Hi Carol: I’m up here in Ontario, Canada and I’ve just taken a load of those sheets, towel, flannel sheets to our Animal Shelter. They can always use any type of bedding or towels for cleaning or making a kennel more comfortable for their guests. Animals don’t care if it’s got a stain, only that it smells safe. Hope this helps. Lynn

    1. Hi Brandy! I bought mine at Michaels (on a buy one get one sale – even better!). I have some more of them for towel storage in the basement. Hope that helps!

    1. Hi Candy! I bought them at Staples but I don’t think they carry them anymore. I’m not 100% sure! But you can find similar ones (unfortunately they aren’t sticky – they are screw on) – on Amazon and they ship to Canada. Here is the aff link: http://amzn.to/2m8ernZ.

  4. Your linen closet is “organization inspiration heaven.” Love your wooden shelves and the labels. It looks like you put a lot of work into this project. But, the result is just wonderful. Great job!

  5. Your linen closet looks so pretty and organized! Thanks for sharing how you did it. I think that first step – pulling everything out – will be the most intimidating for me. 😉 Love those large blue-and-white bins; I’ll be looking for something similar for my closet!

  6. Hi Krista!
    I share your hatred for wire shelving! It is horrible! I’ve been wanting to replace my wire shelves for some time now, but just haven’t had the time (or maybe just didn’t feel inspired enough). You’ve inspired me! I think I may do this this weekend. You’r’s looks so nice, neat, and organized! I love it! Great work!

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