The linen press is one of those areas the whole family has access to, so it needs good, simple organisation. The golden rule when organising your linen press is to:
Work from your ‘prime position’ first - the shelf at eye level or with easiest access!
This is where you will put what you use most.
Linen Quantity guidelines:
Bath towels: no more than 3 per person.
Sheets – again, at most 2 sets per bed + 1 set of winter sheets.
The only way to bring order to something is to give it A Good Sort, so:
- Pull everything out of your linen press.
- Put back first what you use most (probably towels) and start with your ‘prime position’ shelf.
- Then, using frequency of use, work your way through all other items – good towels, spare towels, face washers, pillow slips, tablecloths etc.
- Sheets: can go up higher as you don’t access them often. Separate your sheets into single bed, queen sheets etc. If possible, put them on their own shelf. If you have very high shelves or cupboards above, put your winter sheets up there in Summer and move them down and put Summer sheets up high in Winter.
ANOTHER IDEA with sheets, you can fold your two sheets together and slide them inside a pillow case, so you can pull the whole bed supply out in one go. (Personally, I don’t do this as all my sheets seem to be in different colours and patterns, so it’s easy for me to see what goes with what – but if your linen is all white, this might help.)
- Containers are great for high shelves as it’s easier to pull the container down to see what’s in it.
- Put a bar of soap on each shelf with linen, it’s a good bug deterrent and smells better than moth balls.
- On your lowest shelves, put things like tablecloths, etc. that you use even less.
If you have items that kids always pull out and shove back, put them in a container on a low shelf. They can manage pulling out and returning a container (alright the contents of the container might be a mess, but at least you know where they are).
Now the trick to keeping it that way… labelling
Once you’ve put everything back, the trick to keeping it tidy is to label your shelves. As anal as this sounds, psychologically it’s difficult to put a towel where it’s labelled single sheets.
A cheap way to label is to type everything out on the computer and then cut it up and use sticky tape. Quick, cheap and looks neat.
Click here for some ‘BEFORE & AFTER’ linen press shots.
