De-cluttering The Linen Closet!

De-cluttering The Linen Closet!…. was my thought yesterday when I reached for a new bottle of shampoo.

I stared at the linen closet and I have to confess that I was not too proud of the way it looked.

Sometimes I get in a hurry when putting bottles of lotion or shampoo on the shelf and instead of putting them in their proper place…I just sit them at the first available space and if that happens to be in front of the towels…..oh well.

And I noted that some of the towels were folded correctly (my usual fold) and some were hastily folded (kind of helter-skelter) and “stuffed” into the linen closet.

Ugh!  Ugly! 😉

Of course my excuse is who is going to look into that messy linen closet? 

Well, the answer is obvious…ME!  and My Captain, but why does it have to be messy?

And so began the de-cluttering of two of the shelves.

Yes, it takes a little effort to put things away neatly, but I thought I am worth it. (taking a line from the hair color commercial)

I love the way Hotel towels look on shelves.

I said to myself, If the maids can do it at hotels…surely, I can do the same in my home.

Soooooo I removed everything from two shelves of the linen closet…I really need to pace myself! 🙂

What a good time to toss out “old” bottles of lotion and other little goodies that I thought I couldn’t live without.

I am sure you have heard that old saying….. if you haven’t used something in 6 months (or because I hate to throw anything away…a year) then one should give item away or toss it out.

Since I was positive no one wanted half used bottles of lotion, (smelling a bit rancid I hate to admit) etc…..I tossed them out. 

I also refolded my towels to make them appear neater and fluffier and well, they just looked better without all the clutter around them.

On my bath towels, I folded them in half and then in thirds and then in thirds again.

I really like that look on the shelf….and I didn’t press them down because it made the towels “fluffier”.

Next, I decided I could make the towels on the towel rack look a little better…..from this….

To this….

I got a little creative by using a different color wash cloth for the pocket. 

For my hand towels, I folded them in thirds and then in thirds again.

I thought I was really clever when it came to my wash cloths.  I folded them in half and then I rolled them.

I had a decorative wire basket stored in the garage (I bought it some time ago with thoughts of using in my kitchen as decor….just could never find that perfect place for it) so I commandeered it to become the new holder of my wash cloths.

I had to experiment a bit…I found if I rolled the wash cloths too loosely they wouldn’t “stand up” neatly and you can see in the pic that they sorta unraveled and looked a bit unsightly.

There was a little learning curve in folding and placing the wash cloths in the basket as you can see below.  Some were not too neat, but I kept working with them and they look better.

I really like where the wire container sits on my bathroom counter and the cloths are so handy…I just lift up the lid.

I experimented with colors and I have come to the conclusion that I don’t really care for anything but white towels.

Due to the expense of replacing all my color towels with white….I really need to keep them.  

But when replacing them…I will replace with white only. 😉

AND….in keeping with the “neat and tidy” look, I ended up with more towels than we really need…two people certainly don’t need 30 towels…so some of the towels went into guest bath rooms and some went to Goodwill.

Since the Captain and I travel a lot, I had a lot of little bottles of shampoos, hair sprays, razors etc,…so I placed these smaller items in a plastic container rather than sitting on the shelf….AND I have to confess that I will go back through the stuff in a few weeks to see if I can eliminate a few more bottles.

The top shelf of my linen closet contains my sheets…but that is for another post on how I went from a ball of fitted sheets to a neatly folded sheets.

Of course, the best tip on folding fitted sheets is to wash them and put them right back on the bed….as I said…one must pace oneself!

Have a great week-end. 😉