Whilst Winter may feel like a silly time to do some “Spring Cleaning” it’s actually a great way to spread out the deep cleaning chores that you need to do every once in a while, so today I want to focus on a place in our homes that can get a little unruly when we are pressed for time. The linen cupboard! Linen Cupboards may not be the most exciting part of your home, but they do go a long way to making it feel organised and tidy. When everything has a home to go to it’s much easier to make a point of putting it back where it belongs for when you need it next. Here’s a great way to do it!
What you’ll need:
- Four Boxes or Containers one for things you can donate, one for the rubbish, one for things that need to be refolded and one for things that need to be reorganised
- Cleaning Cloth for wiping drawers and shelves
- A Cushion or a Chair that you can sit on so you don’t have to sit on the floor or stand the whole time
- Time this is probably not a quick job if you want to get the whole cupboard done
- Some Good Tunes for your sanity ;)
How to:
Linen cupboards are a really personal part of our homes. You might not keep the same things in your linen cupboard that I do, but for this how to I’m going to assume that you keep your sheets, towels, face washers (flannels), tea towels, and some other things that don’t fit elsewhere in your home in there. Please feel free to adapt as required.
- Start by putting your 4 boxes or containers by the linen cupboard, grab your chair or cushion, your cleaning cloth and turn on your tunes. Then pick the shelf you want to tackle first. For this I’m choosing the tea towel, pillow slip and face washer (flannel) shelf first. I like to pick an easy shelf first as completing it quickly really gets the momentum going. You could tackle the hardest shelf first if you want to get it out of the way.
- Pull each item out one at a time and sort into the boxes or containers. Add anything you no longer want but is good quality to the donate box and anything that is damaged beyond repair to the rubbish box. Anything you want to keep but needs to be refolded you can add to the refold box and then anything that isn’t foldable or doesn’t really belong in the linen cupboard into the reorganise box for later. If there’s anything left over, pop it to one side for the moment.
- Take the cleaning cloth and wipe down the shelf and place the left over items you just put to one side back on the shelf. I like to organise mine by type with the most used towards the top and the holiday and special occasion items towards the bottom. If anything seems like it needs to be washed, you could make a pile for that too.
- Before moving on to the next shelf, tackle the refolding box and the reorganise box for this shelf. Pull out anything that needs to return to this shelf and refold it now and give it a home. It will make these boxes feel less overwhelming than if you leave them until the end (when you’ve most likely had enough of this task).
- Choose your next shelf to tackle and repeat steps 2, 3 and 4. For this I’m going to take on the sheets and duvet (doona) cover/quilt cover shelf. When you’re thinking about organising your sheets, check that the fitted sheets are folded well and decide if you want to organise by bed size or by person. This really depends on the space you have. We have ours split by sheet/bed sizes.
- Repeat steps 2, 3 & 4 for all of your shelves including the towels. When organising the towels, think about how they fold best for your space and how you prefer to keep them. If you also use your linen cupboard for keeping special items safe, do check them and make sure that there hasn’t been any unexpected damage that you might not have noticed.
- Once you’ve completed all shelves you should have a box or container for donations that’s nearly ready to go. Go through this once more and check that you haven’t added anything you want to keep by accident or should have gone in the rubbish box. Take it somewhere that you will remember to take it for donation (this could be by the front door or in your car).
- Check the rubbish box doesn’t have anything it shouldn’t in it and then make sure it all goes out to the rubbish outside and not left in the house and accidentally put back in the cupboard for convenience.
- If there’s anything left in the refold box now is the time to tackle that one last time and add them to the correct shelves.
- The last box for you to look at is the reorganise box. If there’s anything left that needs to go back in the cupboard, add it now, or if it belongs in another part of the home, take it there and give it a proper home.
- If there’s anything left out now, it should be a laundry pile. Take that to the laundry and either put on a load or leave it for when you do your laundry.
- Now go back to your linen cupboard once more and admire all your hard work! Well done!
- Optional step: if you can, explain your new linen cupboard system to your family or people you live with and ask them to help you keep it neat. I know this won’t work for everyone, but it’s worth a try! ;)
This may not be the most exciting of things to do, but I do always feel great when it’s done. It makes things so much easier later on. This could be something that you either do on your own or something that you get your older children (if you have any) to help you with when they are complaining of boredom. It’s definitely something I used to do on school holidays if I got really bored. I learnt quickly not to be bored, haha!
I think having some great tunes to keep you company will help make the time go a bit faster too. I love a good clear out! It makes things feel much calmer.
Do you have a system for your linen cupboard? Or is it on the bottom of your to-do list these days?
If you do try this, I’d love to see a photo or hear about how it went! Tweet me your pics at: @danniellecresp or instagram me at: @dannielle with the hashtag: #styleforahappyhome