Life Hack: Linen Closet Clean-Up

   In the 9 houses we've lived in over the last 10 years we've had no linen closet, an open closet in our bathroom, a big ol' plastic bin stuffed with linens, we've pretty much had it all! So, in this house we actually have a real linen closet, but our first year with it, it was a crazy-town disaster! 
   Anywho, that was not cool with me, so a real fix-up was needed! I started by really clearing out what we had. We had a lot of bits and pieces of sheet sets, a ridiculous amount of towels (um, possibly from years of working at camps and inheriting lost and found towels....?), and a lack of good shelf space.

All our sheet sets folded and happy in their own pillowcase. :)

   I used an Ikea shelf we already had (that was just collecting dust in our basement) and brought it into the closet. The linen closet had some shelves, but they were very deep, and not well made, so I didn't want our sheets on it.
   So, tip #1: Sheets stored in their own pillowcases! With this method, you just grab what is a whole sheet set with no guess work, and git on your way! :) Extra bonus-if your household gets the barfies (aka-flu), it makes it super easy to grab a clean set of sheets in the middles of the night after someone has gotten sick! Also, with this idea, it made it easier to clean out the random linens I had because if they didn't have a set to be folded and stuffed with, they got the boot! Another tip about sheets sets, however it's possible with whatever shelving space you have, keep each bed size separate somehow. This system is only truly helpful if anyone (read: spouse!) can reach in and pull out the right sheet set!  
   The only extras I kept were 2 pillowcases in case a sleepover friend came over for the kids or something, and I just needed a pillow case for them, and not a whole set of sheets.

"Andrea Style" folding so you only see one folded side of each towel or blanket. These are the shelves that were already in the closet. Because they are so deep and I didn't want to have to reach past the front piles of towels and blankets, I decided that only the front part of the shelves would be used.

   Tip #2: Folding "Andrea Style". 
   It's funny because I thought I was being smart and organized by folding our things so that you only saw the one folded side of a towel or blanket, but one my my sisters informed me that our eldest sister (Andrea) does it. So, I clearly (subconsciously) took her idea and just thought I was so smart. Turns out I wasn't. She was. Dang.
  A word about towels.....you don't need 50 of them! If you own a washing machine, or have weekly access to a washing machine, you don't need a lot of towels! If you have the shelf space for 50 towels, it still doesn't mean you need that many. O.k., maybe if you have 25 people living in your house you need 50, but I'm gonna guess you don't have 25 people living in your house? Thought so. I'm just being a bit bossy, but I just wanna share my deep thoughts on towels. :) 
   So, these simple changes start while you're folding the laundry. If you're folding it anyway, why not fold it so that it will make life easier later when you go looking for this stuff!?