Organizing Your Linen Closet

This post is part of the series “Organizing Your House: One Room At A Time.” To see the rest of the posts in this series, click here.

My linen closet is a small space in the hall above our cold air return. The shelves come several inches short of the front of the closet, so I really have to make the most of the space I have. I tried storing “linens” in this space, and it didn’t work at all. It never looked neat, so I pulled the sheets and towels to another spot and decided to use this closet for extra hair products, body wash, toothpaste and travel toiletries. I spent less than $10 at Dollar Tree for all the baskets. I love how this closet turned out!

I realize this closet could be much more functional with better shelving, but for now I’m going to do what I can with what I have. The shelves were probably made from painted scrap wood, and I thought they were ugly. I covered all the shelves with pretty shelf liner from Dollar Tree. I covered the bottoms of the shelves with liner as well, to give this tiny space some color and interest. I really like how it turned out.

On the top shelf, I stored a few bath towels and a basket with extra hand towels. The top shelf is too high for me to easily access a pile of hand towels, so I used a plastic basket that I can easily slide out and grab what I want.

Being a couponer, I always have a good supply of toiletries. The middle shelf has one basket with toothpaste, floss, and medicine. I like how the shower caddy holds those things. I also have a lot of trial/travel size items, and I keep those in the smaller buckets you see in the middle. Each bag is labeled with shampoo/body wash/etc. Can you imagine how messy my closet would be if all those things were just loose on the shelves? The other basket holds washcloths, just to keep things neat and uniform.

The bottom shelf is the most full because it’s the deepest shelf. I have baskets with bottles of various hair care items, toiletries and makeup. That tan blob in the front right is my neck wrap from Bed Bath & Beyond. I want to make sure it’s accessible, because it does wonders for migraines! Once more, just imagine the mess if all these things were not organized in baskets!

I put a little adhesive hook on each side of the closet, and they work well for blistex or other small packaged items like that.

One more organizational tip. Can you relate with this?

Please don’t think I’m being negative towards men. They just choose to remember different things than we do. I rely on my husband’s knowledge for so many important things, and he relies on me when he needs to know where to find more toothpaste. 🙂 I have found a trick to make it easier for my husband to find things: labels. Having baskets labeled helps me put things in the same place every time, and it helps me explain where to find things.

For these labels, I cut squares out of card stock and attached them with twisty ties. Doesn’t get any easier than that! So the conversations in my house go something like this: