Today I am going to share how I tackled a seriously stuffed hall closet and turned it into a simple and organized linen closet – in less than 30 minutes!

*This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. See my full disclosure here**

In this decluttering journey, I have to admit that this space was one I was not looking forward to. Our linen closet had become one of those places in our house that was just out of sight, and out of mind. I knew what was lurking behind those doors – and knew it wasn’t pretty. But I didn’t really want to acknowledge the task at hand.

Faced with the lofty New Year’s goal of finishing our rental house declutter before we break ground on Arrow Hill Cottage in the spring, I knew that there was no more holding back. It was time.

 

LINEN CLOSET BEFORE

We moved into this rental house four years ago. In our previous home we did not have a linen closet, and so we saw this as a bit of a luxury upgrade. We piled all of our bedding, towels, and extra pillows into the closet and called it good. Except, it wasn’t good.

Here’s the situation. I wash laundry only once per week. I like this system, especially since it gives me a sense of finalization, at least for one day. The towels we use daily are stored in our bathrooms. They make their way into the laundry baskets throughout the week, and on Sunday get a thorough washing. That means that every towel behind this closed linen closet door are ‘extras’, and are rarely used. They are brought out primarily when we have guests stay in our home.

Bedding is similar. After I wash the sheets, they go right back on the beds. Again, as the above photo illustrates, we had saved plenty of extras.

 

DECLUTTERING THE LINEN CLOSET

Starting this declutter was by far the most difficult part. I think I was a bit overcome by just how MUCH we had stored away in this small closet. Once I began to take it all out though, a weight started to lift.

Our linen closet is located at the end of a long hallway upstairs. As I removed the items from the closet, I grouped like category items together. This made it easy to see the quantity of each type of item. Noticing the amount of duplicates made it easier to make decisions regarding what should stay and what should go.

 

Sorting through the piles, I placed items that I thought we should keep on the right side of the hallway, and those that we could donate or sell on the left.

 

 

FINDING TREASURES

One of the biggest surprises during this declutter project was finding a special quilt I had made years ago. It was presented to my husband at the groom’s supper, the night before our wedding. I clearly remember the months leading up to our marriage. Craig was doing a mechanical engineering internship near Chicago, and I was in North Dakota, at college. Those months apart were long and difficult, and I spent many hours working on the quilt and dreaming about married life.

Honestly, this quilt means more to me than my wedding dress. So why was it stuffed in the bottom of the closet, completely forgotten? When I first saw it, I felt really sad that it had been so neglected. Now I am ever more committed to this process, and discovering which items bring us joy.

This quilt will serve as a reminder of how easily items you cherish can be crowded out by other, less important, belongings. It will be going to the dry cleaners, and a more prominent spot will be found for it in our new home.

 

THINGS TO CONSIDER

When decluttering and creating an organized linen closet, there are a few important questions you should ask yourself:

Is this a convenient location for these items? Linen closets were very popular in older homes, but have fallen out of favor somewhat in recent years. I believe the reason is that more people now place items closer to where they will be used, instead of grouped together in a central location. For example, the bed sheets may be stored in the bedroom closets, and the extra toilet paper in the bathroom.

Really think about what works best for you and your family. Where some might find a central linen closet the prime location to store towels and bedding, others may find that a hall linen closet in their home is better suited to store cleaning supplies, small appliances, or even toys.

 

How many of _____ do we need? In our household, whenever a new set of towels was purchased we continued to hold onto the old set. Just in case, we said. If we have company, we thought. The truth of the matter is that if we chose to buy new towels, our old ones had more than likely finished their purposeful life for our family.

I encourage you to determine how many towels, bed linens, etc. your family really needs. Any more than those items used on a weekly basis will likely be stored. Don’t let them multiply behind closed doors like we did!

 

ORGANIZED LINEN CLOSET

Like a lot of people, I have been watching ‘Tidying up’ on Netflix. One of the tips I have learned from watching the show is the idea of placing like items into smaller baskets for storage. I have mentioned before that I have a love for baskets. In fact, I have a stash of them in our storage closet, just waiting to be used.

These chrome wire baskets were the perfect size to hold the items I had chosen to keep.

Though I don’t have quite the ‘magic’ of Marie Kondo, I did try her method of folding into thirds and storing them upright. I have to say that it really did save space! An entire set of towels (two bath towels, one hand towel and one wash cloth), was able to fit into a single basket, for example.

When putting the linens back into the closet, I made sure to put the items that will be used more frequently on the eye level shelves. The large blankets were placed on the highest shelf, since it is likely they will be accessed by the adults only. The extra pillows are now within reach for the kids to use for camp-outs and movie nights.

It is important to note that we are living in a rental house. Because of this, we aren’t able to modify the spacing between shelves. If you have a closet with adjustable shelves, customizing your storage should be much more efficient!

 

BENEFITS OF AN ORGANIZED LINEN CLOSET

Now that our linen closet is organized, I definitely want it to stay that way! The following benefits will help me keep the clutter from coming back.

Items are easily found. One glance in, and you can see how things are organized, by category. This makes it much faster to find that towel when you need to clean up a spill, or retrieve a clean set of bedsheets for a child who had a middle of the night accident.

Linens have room to breathe. With the linen closet stuffed to the max, there was little air circulation. Stored in this way for too long, and you could be dealing with musty towels and bedding. That’s just not pleasant. In your organized linen closet, you may consider adding an open box of baking soda. It will help cut down on moisture and will keep things smelling fresh and clean.

 

WATCH ME ORGANIZE MY LINEN CLOSET

See the process of of decluttering my personal linen closet. I am still shocked to see the drastic change!

 

ORGANIZED LINEN CLOSET INSPIRATION

Inspired by this post? Share it!