If you have excess laundry to deal with, you probably have a linen closet that is less than user-friendly. Once you have clean towels, rags, and other linens to put away, you won't do it if your destination is less-than-appealing.



So let's organize it! This is the first place where you'll have to be brutally honest with yourself about what you keep and what you get rid of. When I say, “get rid of,” I don't necessarily mean it ends in the trash—if it's towels, bedding, etc., that are in bad condition, your local animal shelter would be grateful for your donation. They always need things for the dogs and cats to lay on in their runs and crates, and your cast-offs in this area will be eagerly accepted.

1. Take stock of what you have for shelves. Do you have wooden or wire shelves? Do you have problems with things “falling through” if you have wire shelves? If so, you don't have to worry and go buy scrap wood to line the shelves with—a simple piece of shelf-lining (you know, that bumpy green stuff that comes in rolls) will lay nicely and prevent small things from falling through. If necessary, put some of that down.

2. Now take a look and see what you've got in terms of extra bedding. How many beds in your home? You should have a minimum of 1 extra bedding-set for each bed, a maximum of 2. Think about it before you start to write me and tell me why you need 6 sets of bedding for each bed—if you have small children who have nighttime accidents (or get the stomach flu in the middle of the night), you might have to change sheets in the morning (or the middle of the night if it's barf!), and you'll have some clean ones to put on. You'll put the dirty ones in the washer and get the machine started on that task. Then you'll swap things to the dryer. You'll still have clean sheets on the bed and if you've got 2 extra sets, another clean one in the linen closet. So now with that argument won, go through your bedding. Do you have mis-matched pieces? If so, put them in the donation pile. Do you have twin pieces mixed in with king pieces? If so, separate them in to piles. Make sure everything is folded (I'll give you a pass on the fitted sheets—those are impossible to fold neatly!). Now set aside one or two shelves for your bedding. Make sure that the bedding for the queen bed is not piled up with the stuff for the crib or twin bed. You can fold the stuff in squares or fold it in to long rectangles and then roll it. Either way is acceptable—it just depends on how much space you've got.

Good job—now we'll move on to towels and other things in Part Two of Organizing Your Linen Closet!