When I bought my house one thing I really liked was the huge linen closet. It’s so big that my daughter calls it the gateway to Narnia. This closet is eight feet long and about two feet deep. I thought I had died and gone to Heaven. No more cramming things in there to make them fit, I couldn’t wait to fill up my new linen closet.
Fast forward three years and this poor linen closet looks like a bag lady’s shopping cart exploded in it. Towels are tumbling everywhere, sheets are in one place, pillowcases in another, there’s no toilet paper but apparently I have enough shaving cream to get rid of every beard in a 20 mile radius. How did this happen? I had good intentions, they just kind of fell to the side once I started shoving everything in my new huge linen closet.
Right now there are three long shelves about two feet apart, one day I will need to redo the shelving to make it even more useful but for now, something had to change.
First I emptied everything out of the closet. I have no idea why there are ice scrapers in there, but there they were. I rounded up all the things that shouldn’t live in the linen closet and put them away.
Next I folded all the sheets. I put each sheet set inside a pillow case and then I used a label maker to mark a place on the shelves for each size of sheet, no more unfolding and getting the bed half made before I realize I have Hailey’s sheets. They look so pretty and neat now as a package instead of leaning stacks of mismatched sheets. I also found that we have way more sheet sets than we need so I donated some.
We probably have more blankets than most people. I crochet and quilt so we have quite a few. I have a basket in the family room with blankets to snuggle with during movie watching but I have even more stored in the linen closet, and they always fall off the shelf. I rolled all the blankets jelly roll style and tied with them with a ribbon. Now they look pretty in there and I can easily get the blanket I want out of the stack.
I used bins to organize bathroom supplies, toilet paper, shampoo, conditioner, lotion, toothpaste; I always stock up when things are on sale. Now I can see exactly what I have and what I need. I alos found wire hanging bins, my shelves are so far apart that the hanging bins were perfect for washclothes and hand towels.
Don’t forget the floor, my closet is so big that I keep my laundry baskets there, I can sort as I go which helps on laundry day, and it also keeps other things from ending up on the floor.
Sometimes I just open the door to stare in there, it looks so pretty!