Hello, friends! Welcome back to Day 17 of How to Organize Your Entire Home in 20 Days!
We are so close to being finished with getting your house in order, just a few more short days and you will have reached your goal!
For Day 17, we are going to organize your linen closet.
**Bonus tip: The best way to make your linen closet looking nice is to have the "fat fold" facing out. Watch this video to see what we mean. This means that the thickest part of the sheet should be facing out. This creates a nice, uniform look!
This is one of the closets we tend to shut the door on to try to forget the mess isn’t there.
Today’s process will be quick and easy though, plus the end result will be so worth it!
If your linen closet is part of your laundry room, check out Day 16 for a full guide to organizing that room.
The first step to organizing your linen closet is to pull out all of the items in the closet and make a pile of them on the floor.
Start pulling out all of the sheets, blankets, towels, back stock items, anything that is in the space. Leave nothing behind in the closet.
By pulling out everything in the linen closet, you will be able to see which items actually belong in there and which items got thrown in there and are just adding to the disorganization.
Once you have pulled everything out of the space, start categorizing all of the items.
This means grouping together all of the like items -- the more defined you can make your groups, the better your linen closet will look at the end of the process.
Make groups of matching sheets, extra pillow cases comforters, throw blankets, back stock items (can we say Costco?!), towels, toilet paper, extra toiletries and anything else you may store in your linen closet.
Once you have made those broad groups, further categorize them by the size of each of the items (king size sheets, queen size sheets, adult towels, children towels).
By categorizing all of the items in your linen closet, you will easily be able to put the items back in an organized way and make it easier to find things in the future.
After you have pulled everything out and categorized your items, the next thing to do is to throw away any trash that you see.
Trash that easily accumulates in this closet are old boxes and random pieces of paper and plastic.
After you have categorized everything from your linen closet, the next step in the organizing process is to clean the shelves!
Start by dusting and wiping clean all of the shelves. Once you have done that, vacuum/sweep the floor.
Finish up by placing an air freshener in the closet so the items stored in there smell fresh when you go to use them.
It’s always best to clean the space in the middle of the organizing process when all of the items are out of the space so you can clean in those hard to reach spots.
Once you have cleaned the linen closet, it's time to get back to all of the items in the floor.
There are only 3 options to all of these items: keep, donate or trash.
Items that you want to keep should be things that serve a purpose for your family and will definitely be used in the future.
These are things like sheets, comforters, and toiletries that your family still uses.
Items that need to be donated are things that are still in good condition but no longer serve a purpose for your family.
These are things like sheets and comforters that your family has outgrown, sheets and comforters that don’t fit any current beds that you have, items that you have an excess of and items (excluding back stock items) that you haven’t used in the last 6 months.
Depending on how organized you want to be, you can also donate any non-matching sheets you may have, or create a section for the non-matching sheets so you always have back-ups when your friends or family visit.
Items that are trash are things that don’t have any further purpose for your family and wouldn’t serve anyone else purpose either.
These are going to be things like ripped or stained sheets, pillowcases, comforters and empty bathroom products -- this is also a good time to fill up your daily use toiletries from this back stock area!
If you are having difficulty deciding on what items should be kept or donated, ask yourself questions such as, when was the last time someone in my family used/wore this item? Does this item still serve its original purpose for me? How many of this one item do I have and is more than one really necessary? Would someone else better benefit from having this item than I would?
By asking yourself these questions about items you aren’t sure of, you are opening your mind and being honest with yourself about the needs of your family. Any items that you keep but you don’t need will continue to add to the clutter around your house for no reason.
By giving away these items, you are not only clearing the mess from your house, you are also allowing someone else to use these items that may need them more than you.
Once you have decided on which items you will be keeping, it's time to put those things back into your linen closet.
While you are putting away the items, keep them grouped together by the categories you previously sorted them in.
Store your comforters and throw blankets on the top shelf since those items are the least commonly used items.
Next, store your sheets on the shelf under the blankets. Check out our video on how to neatly fold those pesky fitted sheets.
Baskets are great for storing away linens and blankets because they prevent them from falling on top of each other and makes it easier to find them in the future.
You can even have different baskets for different sheet sizes.
Once the sheets are back in, store away the towels on the shelf below that (make sure your children can still reach them!).
Lastly, put away all of your toiletries, toilet paper, and other back stock items. Keep all of your products grouped in their categories and store them in bins to keep them contained and organized. Finish up by adding labels to any bins that you used.
If you didn’t utilize bins, you can still add labels to the shelves to ensure everything stays in its place (and everyone knows where to put it back!).
Finish up by taking care of any leftover items.
These are going to be the items that were in your linen closet at the beginning of today's process but don't actually belong there.
Take the time now to find where these items truly belong.
Don’t let your linen closet turn into your dreaded nightmare. With just a few steps, you can get it back to being easy to find all of your stuff and looking great.
If you are still feeling overwhelmed and would like help with organizing your linen closet (or any room!), please reach out to the Clutterless Home Solutions Team.
Talk soon,
Clutterless Home Solutions