Simple Tips to Organize & Refresh Your Linen Closet

Today I’m sharing my best tips for purging and organizing your linens and towels and creating a beautifully organized linen closet.  

Welcome to Week five of the 10 Week Organizing Challenge! We are half-way there! This week we are tackling the linen closet. 

I remember a few years back we had a lovely family next door that were very focused on all things active and outdoorsy.  One day the Mom/Wife told me that she would rather spend all her time outside then indoors organizing her closets.  I felt myself redden because an organized closet is something that brings me a lot of joy.  I’m a house geek, I can’t help it!  And now that I’m older and have accepted my idiosyncrasies I’m not embarrassed about it any longer.  There is nothing wrong with getting excited about a beautifully organized closet;)

Closet Organization

Don’t get me wrong, I love a good hike in the woods and enjoy nature greatly.  But I’m also a bit more house and home focused than the average Jane.  I think if you’re reading this right now, you may feel the same way. Or perhaps you just really want to feel comfortable and organized in your home so it functions better for you and makes it easier to get out and do all the things you love to do outside.  Whatever the reason, this is a fun and easy week in the organizing challenge, and I loved adding a few decorative changes to our linen closet to make the finished product that much more special!

During the big home renovations that we tackled last year, we took a part of our linen closet and added it on to our bedroom closet in order to gain some additional storage space in there. This meant that we now have a slightly unusual wall jutting into our linen closet, and a good half of the storage space tucks behind the other side of the front wall.

Here is how it was looking when I began this week’s task…

The wall and shelves had never even been painted – just one of those jobs that got dropped to the bottom of the list during the renovations. What a mess! Everything was piled in and there was not much rhyme or reason to it all. It honestly caused me pain to open it and look in…

First things first.

Tip One: Take all the linen out. Sort it. Purge what you don’t need.  Fold it and place it all into like groups/categories.

I took everything out, folded it all neatly again, and sorted it into like groups.  Bedding together by size.  Towels together by size/use.  Etc. I then stored it all, neatly folded in groups, in a couple of totes for a day or two while I tackled the next part of the project.

Tip Two: Refresh!  Paint, add wallpaper, add art or a little sign.  Do something to freshen it up, clean it up, and make it a happy little corner of your home.

Once everything was out, I got in there and painted three full coats of while paint on all of the walls and shelves (top and bottom), except for the wooden wall surface facing out that was closest to the door.  I had another plan for that.

I used some easy peel and stick wallpaper that I picked up at one of my local Hardware stores to cover up that wall.  Having worked with peel and stick wallpaper in this project and having a bit of a hard time with it, I was VERY pleasantly surprised with how easy this one was to work with.  You can find it here.

Once I got it up, I decided I wanted to use it on the back wall of the closet as well, as you can see by my “part-way” image below…

Tip Three: Group items together and purchase baskets as needed to store like-items neatly and in a contained way.

Lastly, I began sorting my bedding, towels etc. back into the closet and realized that baskets would make it easier to group smaller items and keep everything staying neat.  So at this point, I went out and purchased some grey wicker baskets from my local Walmart, and added labels to them.  I also used two taller, grey striped bins that we already owned to store our beach towels in.

Here is how our linen closet looks after these organizational and decorative changes…

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What a before and after, right?!

See, sometimes it is the little things that really bring you joy in the day-t0-day!

I also shared my linen closet organization tips the first time I tackled the 10 Week Organizing Challenge in our previous house…

20 Beautifully Organized Linen Closets 

 How to Replace Wire Shelves with DIY Wooden Shelves 

 How to Completely Organize Your Linen Closet

 

Check out my other posts in the 10 Week Organizing Challenge Series 2.0!

Ready to get your home organized?  It’s free and easy to follow along!

You can sign-up for my email list and will be sent an update with instructions each week for the next ten weeks about tackling the 10 Week Organizing Challenge in your own home.

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By reader request, I’ve also made this 10 Week Organizing Challenge into an e-book! 

Follow along with the Ten Week Organizing Challenge through this e-book using your tablet.  It includes bonus free printable checklists for each week of the challenge…

Learn all about the Ten Week Organizing Challenge E-book here.