This week I have been organizing my linen closet. My hall closet is home to our toiletry stockpile, bed sheets, and towels for the entire family. (I actually keep Sydney’s crib sheets in her closet.)

My problem was containment.Stacks of linens would slide starboard, hand towels would get lost in the pile, and stock pile items mixed in with each other making it hard to know how much of anything I had. So, I followed the steps I outlined in my Monday closet organizing post, and set to work devising an organizing system for the items that “live” in my hallway closet.

1. Assess your space – I already had built-in shelving so this step was easy.
2. Assess what you have – and get rid of what you don’t need. I decided to give away a few stockpile items, and I moved several items to other “homes.”
3. Create an organizing plan- consider the shapes and sizes of the keep-pile items and sketch a closet system what will use your vertical space best. Also create a budget. Since my problem was containment, I needed containers to “hold” different toiletry items and containers to organize the bed sheet sets.
4. Shop and collect – the organizers you need to create your closet space.I bought $1.50 bins at Walmart and I purchased a laminating machine at Staples to make durable label tags. I also purchased clearance-rack pillow cases for $2.99/2 at the discount store to organize my bed sheet sets.
5. Install – set up your closet organizing system.  Stand back and view your handiwork – and don’t forget to regularly re-evaluate your space and make adaptations so your organizing system continues to work for you.

After – all organized *ahhhhh*

This is how I created the labels:

I created labels in a desktop publishing computer program (I used Scribus, but you can also use MS Word or an equivalent word processing program.) (Remember to measure your bins if you are planning on sticking these to bins. You wouldn’t want them to be too big!) I printed them in color, cut the paper to size and laminated them. I used a office supply store-brand laminater that cost $89, but you can go to Kinkos/FedEx, the UPS Store, and I think, OfficeMax to laminate things. I simply stuck the tags m to the bins with packing tape. For the bed sheet sets, I punched a hole in the side of the tag, looped through a piece of ribbon, and pinned it to the pillow-cased sheets with safety pins.  The finished product looks like this!

Other Notes:

I didn’t mention this elsewhere, but I used the standard sized pillow cases to contain each of my bed sheet sets. Inside each pillow case I placed the flat sheet, fitted sheet, and matching pillow cases so none would be stranded again.

The wipe board on the inside of the linen closet door helps me keep track of my stockpile inventory.

I store the toothpaste and medicines in another location out of toddler reach. Tyler can let himself into this closet, so I don’t want Sydney to Dracula-tooth through a toothpaste tube and OD.

Do you have a linen closet? What do you keep in yours? Share your great organizing tips with other readers by commenting below! Happy organizing!