Be delighted with yourself committing to organize your home is the first step in actually doing it! The Linen Closet will need attending to eventually so lets go there now.

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 wont do it if thier destination is less-than-appealing.

So lets organize it! This is the first place where youll have to be brutally honest with yourself about what you keep and what you get rid of. When I say, get rid of, I dont necessarily mean it ends up in the trashif its 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.

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 dont have to worry and go buy scrap wood to line the shelves witha simple piece of shelf-lining (you know, that bumpy green stuff that comes in rolls) will lie nicely and prevent small things from falling through. If necessary, put some of that down.

Now take a look and see what youve 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 bedif 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 its barf!), and youll have some clean ones to put on. Youll put the dirty ones in the washer and get the machine started on that task. Then youll swap things to the dryer. Youll still have clean sheets on the bed and if youve 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 two piles. Make sure everything is folded (Ill give you a pass on the fitted sheetsthose 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 acceptableit just depends on how much space youve got.

Now we move on to towels and other things in your linen closet

3. Take stock of your towels, washcloths, and other terrycloth things. Do you have towels that are holey or bleach-stained? Do you have towels that arent very absorbent from using too much fabric softener? Do you have towels that dont match your current bathroom dcor? Donate them. Keep only that which matches your dcor (unless you turn it in to a rag), and only that which wouldnt embarrass you to put out for guests when they visit. That should pare down your towel collection to a more manageable number.

I cant tell you an exact number that is appropriate herethat depends on how many members are in your family. What I can suggest is 2 towels per personone thats currently hanging in the bathroom and one clean one that can be conscripted into service when the current one is in the wash. Do you have washcloths? One for every-other day of the week would be appropriatemany people dont use them anymore, in this age of scrubbies, poufs, and other facial cleansing methods.

Do you have a rag-pile (or kitchen-towel pile) in your linen closet? If so, fold those and put them on a shelf thats easy to access. Youll use those most frequently, so make them easy to reach and use. Again, sort through and see whats in reasonable condition and put the rest in the pile for the animal shelter.

What other things are in your linen closet? Do you have table linens there? If so, do you know whats there? Are they neat enough that when you need them you dont have to go digging and put the iron on fry it silly to get the wrinkles out? If any of the above is true, pull them out, wash, sort, keep only the best, and fold (or press) them quickly and put them away.

Finally, if you have other miscellaneous things (doilies, candlesticks, etc.) in your linen closet, set a shelf aside for those things. If you dont have a full shelf to ascribe to them, use a shelf thats only half-full of other items. Again, sort through and keep only what youre in love withanything else can be donated to a charity-resale shop, given to siblings, or sold on eBay.

Dont keep things just in case great-aunt Mildred comes byshe wont, and if she does, she probably wont remember what it was. Remember, youre organizing your home so that its not just a house of stuff for your family. Thats much more important than not offending a distant relative!

Congratulationsyouve won the battle with your linen closet. Isnt it such a nice feeling to open up a closet and not be in danger of the falling towel zone?