This week I decided to tackle our linen closet that has begun to get out of control. It was time to get it organized and see if we could make any extra space. This only took a couple of hours to go through everything, clean it all, organize it and place everything back in its new home. It is the perfect get organized project to complete during the week. You do not need to devote all day to do it, just take a couple hours and get another space organized and then keep it that way(that’s the plan at least)!
Here is how we got it done:
1.) I decided to start on the bottom with all the sheets, pillow cases, towels, and blankets and began by removing everything from the bottom half of the linen closet and placing it out and about on the floor.
2.) Now that everything was empty I took this opportunity to clean and disinfect all the shelves. This is the best time to spring clean the space since it is one of the few times this cabinet will be completely empty.
3.) Now that the cabinet is clean we can get to making sense of what needs to go back into the space. Start by sorting through everything you have and group those items together. Towels on one pile, sheets on another. As you sort things take a look at what you have. Do you still need all of this? Some of my towels were way too old so those got thrown into a pile to be used as rags in the garage. Anything that is old, falling apart, or you know you will just never use, you don’t need it. It is time to part ways.
4.) Now it is time to start organizing the items you do have left. In my cabinet the towels used to be split onto two shelves with the towels we use most on the bottom. I am going to change this and put all the towels on the top shelf. To best organize them sort your bath towels from your hand towels and wash cloths. Now fold all the towels of each type the same way so everything stacks nicely. We now have nice stacks of our bath towels, wash cloths, and hand towels. The white towels on the right in the picture are older bath towels that I now use for the dogs. (There would be more bath towels on the left, but it is laundry day so the cabinet looks a little more empty than it normally would)
5.) Once the towels are back it is time to organize the blankets and sheets. I organized all the sheets into piles of each sheet set. The easiest and most efficient way to do this is to nicely fold the fitted and flat sheets and any pillow cases you have to go with it. Then you will take one of the pillow cases and place the entire set inside of it. Now you have a nice, neat, and easily stackable bundle of each sheet set. This makes it easy to see which set it is and easy to pull out for guests or when changing sheets.
6.) As you can see in our after picture we have stacked the blanket and sheet sets on the right hand side. Just by changing the configuration of where the towels and sheets were we have created much more room and are left with some extra space for more blankets to be placed in this closet which will clear up space in the rest of the house. Everything is now organized and easy to see and access whatever you may need. Time to tackle the top of the cabinet.
7.) Again we will start with removing everything from the top of the cabinet. We are leaving the top shelf alone today as this is extra glassware that cannot be stored in the kitchen. That was recently added and is arranged as best it can be at the moment. We are removing everything else. The bottom shelf is extra makeup, nail stuff, and extra toiletries for the bathrooms. The middle shelf is wrapping paper, gift bags, ribbon, baskets, etc.
8.) Once it is all removed, use this time to clean these shelves and then begin the sorting process. I did this one shelf at a time. I went through all the makeup and lotions and threw away anything that was too old. Then I threw away things I have not used in the last 6 months and knew there was no way I would ever use it. Anything like that needs to be tossed.
9.) Now begin to separate these items even more specifically. I had makeup, lotions, body wash, travel items, manicure and pedicure tools, nail polishes, etc. Group like items and get ready to organize into containers. By organizing these things into separate containers it is easily removed from the cabinet when needed without disrupting the organization of everything else. All the items for manicures and pedicures went into an old Caboodle I had (yes I still have my caboodle). All the lotions and body washes were paired by scent and organized into a basket. I placed the oldest ones at the front and newer ones to the back of the basket so I use up the older stuff first. Next I organized all the small travel items into another basket. That left me with just a few boxes of extra things to arrange that will not be in baskets. Now I put everything back in the cabinet in an orderly fashion to best utilize the space and make everything accessible.
10.) Now to separate all the gift bags and wrapping material. Since we have boxes of holiday decorations already stored neatly in the garage we decided to separate everything by holiday, box it and add it to the garage with the decorations. This solution works as that is the only time of year we will need that type of wrapping. The birthday things we decided to keep in this cabinet since we have birthdays to celebrate all year. We stacked all the bags on the right side. We then folded all the tissue paper nicely and placed it in a smaller bag to keep it contained.
11.) Since we moved a lot of the wrapping supplies to another space it cleared up some room in the cabinet. I have stacks of extra yarn and a basket of crochet supplies that have been hanging out not so nicely in the corner of our living room since before last Thanksgiving. It was decided to use this space to organize extra yarn and the basket of supplies. The basket holds supplies and yarn for current projects. This makes it easy to remove when working on projects and then put back when I am done to keep this mess out of the living room. It is also a nice place to store the extra yarn so I can now see what I have without having to search through multiple bags.
12.) Now you can sit back and enjoy the fact that you now have a nice, clean, and organized linen cabinet. Hopefully you were able to get some extra space to help clear out some clutter from the rest of your home.
Got the bug to organize everything now? Then check out our tips for some other spaces in your home:
Get Organized – Clean Up that Clutter
Get Organized – HolidayDecoration Storage Tips
F.I.N.D.S. 
[…] forget to vacuum the floors as well. Just like with the linen closet (see our previous post on organizing the Linen Closet) this will probably be the only time that the closet is completely empty. When we put everything […]