Years ago I was visiting a friend at her rented beach home. While she packed a picnic lunch I gathered other essentials we would need for our day in the sun. I headed to the linen closet to retrieve some beach towels, pulled the door open and was instantly hit with an avalanche of towels, sheets, and rugs. I still smile when I remember the scene. My friend later revealed that instead of opening the closet door all the way, she would open it a crack, shove clean items in, and immediately slam it shut, thereby avoiding the jack-in-the-box release of linens that had smothered me.
Fast-forward about 12 years… my linen closet isn’t ready to explode on guests, but it sure could use some organizing. We have a king-size bed and folding the sheets for it can be a real chore, so I confess that on days when I am in a hurry, I do jumble the sheets together and toss them into the closet. I pay for it later when my child has an “accident” in the middle of the night and I find myself rummaging through the jumbled mess half-asleep.
To avoid a linen explosion here are some quick and easy tips to organizing your closet:
Organize bed linen in sets. Fold the flat sheet in half lengthwise then fold the fitted sheet so that the elastic ends are not hidden. (Here’s how: Hold the sheet widthwise and stick two fingers into its corners. Bring your fingertips together and match the corners. Turn one of the sheet corners over the other. Put the sheet on the bed and repeat the process with the bottom of the sheet. Fold the sheet into a rectangle, and continue to fold until it’s the size as the flat sheet.) Once that’s done, lay the fitted sheet on the folded flat sheet. Fold pillowcases lengthwise and place them on the sheets. Finally, roll them all together into a neat package (it should resemble a sausage). The next time you need to put clean sheets on your bed you can grab a roll instead of rummaging around.
Arrange towels according to size. I keep bath towels on the middle shelf of our linen closet. (I put them on the shelf that is easiest to access, since they are the items we use the most.) I use beach towels for only part of the year, so I store them on the bottom shelf. I put hand towels to the right of the bath towels and I keep washcloths in a wicker basket. Because of their size they are often subject to being swallowed by larger towels when the closet is at its messiest.
Rugs. Because of their size and weight I keep all of my rugs and bath mats on the very bottom of the linen closet. I separate them into two piles. One contains mats and rugs for the bathroom. The other contains kitchen mats.
I realize that closets come in a variety of shapes, sizes and shelf configurations. The aforementioned tips can be modified for use in just about every closet. But remember, taking the time to organize your closet is the easy part… maintaining the order is the hard part.