When I look at a well-organized linen closet I notice they have a lot less stuff than I do. I’m still trying to figure out what amounts of things I need. I have a bin in the attic of old towels for washing cars and camping. In addition, each child has 1 towel to themselves, color coded. We have about 2 dozen almost white washcloths Then I have lots of misc towels from wedding presents 14 years ago, my college days and some from Darren’s college days. Makes you wonder what actually landed in the rag bin, huh?
I’m waiting to buy new towels until we remodel our bathroom. I’m not sure what colors I’ll settle on and want to make that decision later. I plan to buy 2 bath sheets, 2 bath towels, 3 hand towels, and 8 face cloths. I just made those numbers up, but I think that is what we can use and wash and store well. Each of our beds has 2 sets of sheets. Plus 2 sets for the guest bedroom in the attic. That’s 18 sets of sheets! Not to mention extra mattress pads; blankets; duvets etc.
Family by Heart linen closet
These things make me happy: Neat stacks of folded linens; pretty shelf paper; shelf labels; matching bins; and coordinating colors. I love guest items that aren’t used very often tied up with ribbon. And labels. Lots of labels.
What about you? How many linens do you have? Do you have a rule of thumb? What is your best storage tip?
I don’t have a rule, but looking at these photos I’d say the one thing they have my linen closet doesn’t is close shelves, rather than stacks upon stacks! Maybe that’s what I should be doing… I do have one (Pinterest!) tip I love– keep your linens inside a pillow case. All the pieces are together and you don’t have to worry about folding those terrible fitted sheets!!!
Like you we have 2 sets of sheets per bed, and then have a blanket per bed and then 2 or 3 extra blankets for those times ALL the bedding has to be washed. And I also store my sheets with the whole set inside one of the pillow cases. Works great. Now i need to sort thru and get rid of the extra curtains (from previous houses) and extra blankets that I don’t uses. The hardest thing to store is the extra comfortors. I guess I can get rid of at least one – but right now I have it rolled and tied up like a sleeping bag so that it stands up on the top shelf.
We don’t have a linen closet (oh, what a dream!), so everyone has a rolling underbed storage container in their room. We store extra sheets, blankets, comforters, etc. in there for each person. I do have some small closet space in each bathroom and so towels are stored in there, which makes more sense to me than having a separate linen closet anyway. I mean, why not keep the towels in the room they’ll actually be used in? Beats forgetting to grab one and having to dash to get one while you’re wet and naked. 😉
Sarah, What good ideas! Thank you for taking the time to comment :).
When I saw the top picture it raised an eyebrow. It’s just too weirdly perfect to even be attractive, sort of like a space alien closet. Then i saw Martha Stewarts name… go figure 😉 Unfortunately I don’t have any good suggestions, but I do thank you for the post. A reorg of my linen closet is on my high priority to do list.
One thing I’m going to do with it is put the sheets and towels that the kids get when they change their own linens on the lower shelves, so they don’t make a horrible mess picking out a pillow case 🙂
I don’t think I could put a limitation on washcloths like that 😉 I only have 4.75 children (#5 is due in 10 weeks) but I use washcloths constantly. I think 2 dozen would get me through maybe 2 or 3 days. With a baby it is worse because I have a set I use instead of wipes. That being said, we keep similar limitations on our other items and it works well. We have a family of (almost) seven and a smallish linen closet. At our old house, I had the sheets folded neatly and placed inside their respective pillowcases and it was lovely, but that house was in Hawai’i and we didn’t have the closet stuffed full of heavy blankets like we do here on the mainland. And, the photographers for Martha Stewart don’t have kids getting into the closet while they’re taking pictures, either. I think I’m doing well to a) keep linens within the confines of the door b) off of the closet floor and c) keep the toys out.
I too once read to keep all linens for same set (fitted sheet, top sheet and 2 pillow cases) all wrapped up inside one of the pillow cases, and that has worked well for me. They don’t look as neat folded up as those pictures above, but it keeps me from not being able to find one whole set when I need to make a bed. I keep my towels in our one bathroom (family of 5, soon to be 6-I’m due in 5 weeks-makes having 1 bathroom hard) except for the white ones that we use for when we don’t mind losing one, I keep those in our laundry room. I keep my sheets in the laundry room as well, and I could probably weed out some of the extra sheets and pillowcases that have since lost their sets. I keep as many as I can of my comforters and blankets in a wooden chest, and the rest are stored in closets in plastic blanket bags–the ones that the comforters come in from the store, I keep them for that purpose.
P.S. Congratulations on baby #4. Praying for a healthy and safe birthday.
Oh, and I meant to ask, what is a bath sheet?
Amanda, A bath sheet is a really big towel. I love it because it covers me no matter what size I am :). The kids love it because it’s bigger than their bathrobe.