Welcome to the 30-Day Organize-athon!
In today’s 5 minutes we’re going to express-organize your bed linen, towels, and table linen.
Think: clarity, freedom, and order. Let’s start.
Day 8: Organize Your Bed Linen, Towels, & Table Linen
Step 1: Get a large bag (you may need to buy more bags soon!) and open up your linen shelves. Moving quickly from top left to bottom right, toss out any:
- Sheets and pillowcases that are old, stained or tatty
- Towels that are old, stained or tatty
- Tablecloths that are old, stained or tatty
- Napery that is old, stained or tatty
- Blankets that are old, stained or tatty
- Quilts that are old, stained or tatty
- Bed linen, table linen and towels that are surplus to your general needs (allow for guests and keep a couple of old towels for spills and leaks).
Step 2: If something is really lovely, and can be rejuvenated by laundering or dry cleaning, and you’re certain you’re happy to make the effort, then put it into a separate bag. It’s unlikely anything else will be donation-worthy, except perhaps excess table linen that’s in good condition.
Step 3: Pop your bag(s) into the trash and/or take to the car for dry cleaning/donation.
Step 4: Do a quick re-order of your linen closet to make better use of the newly liberated space.
And you’re done!
Got an Extra 5 Minutes?
- Check your pillows – do you need to update them? If so, add pillows to your shopping list.
- Organize your linens with the main fold facing out, toward you. It looks much nicer this way.
- If you have an attractive table, consider dispensing with tablecloths altogether in favor of placemats. You’ll save on storage space and laundry.
Now don’t you just want to admire your beautiful linen closet?
The 30-Day Organize-athon Mantra
Move fast. Don’t overthink. Let it go!
Leave Your Comment Below…
Please leave a comment below to say you’ve completed today’s task.
See you tomorrow!
[Image by aussiegall]
Done. This was hard for me. For some reason I absolutely hoard sheets and blankets. Few of them match. I sucked it up and got rid of a lot. I did save a few for putting on the plants during frost seasons, but I put them with the gardening items.
So I’m wondering if you say more than “task completed” or something like that, do you have a better chance of winning? Is it truly random from everyone that enters? Either way, I did the task and things look great in my linen closet. This was an easy one since there isn’t much in there. : )
I did this yesterday, but forgot to come back and post. I had wanted to organize this area for a while…now all of my sheet sets are together, nicely folded and all placed into their matching pillow cases with a dryer sheet to stay smelling fresh! I heard that tip a few months back, I just never got around to it until now. My closet looks GREAT!
I did this when we did the Bathroom Cabinets…SO, I did under the hutch where I keep the table linens, etc. What a MESS. I had SO been putting that off. It’s such an easy ‘catch-all’. Wait…it WAS such an easy catch-all. Thank you!
Done 🙂
Done
All I had to do here was to pull out some linens that had borrowed from my mother and need to return. I’ve been surprised with these missions so far how much more organized things are than I think. I’m sure they will get harder!
Our linen closet is the same as the hanging closet, so this was done earlier in the week!
Complete
Done – I recently started this project so this was just ending it.
Done – so glad I had a head start on this one. I did a clean out not long ago.
Day 8 was a super organizing marathon. Every two years my municipality sends the garbage trucks on a designated Saturday to pick up large items. This year I worked on my stuff for 3 weeks. Since I am 65 and divorced I needed help hauling stuff from my basement. I organized 2 work crews. We put out the following: 4 metal shelves, a 4 drawer filing cabinet, unused bed linens and table linens, an exercise machine, 2 old tool chests, a CPU, an copy machine from the Flintstones era, my mother’s kitchen cabinet, and a rack of moldy wood. It was a liberating experience collecting the things and visualizing how my house would look without it. The second great thing is , that as is the tradition, people from all over the area come through the areas designated and take whatever is on the streets. One family’s refuge is other people’s treasures. So I not only got rid of things I have been tripping over, I was able to hand all the usable things to others to use. And my daughters’ bikes that have been in the basement for at least 10 years or more.
To top the day off, my grandchildren and I organized the garage and dropped off a load of usable clothing at Salvation Army store. I am tired but happy. This is a major accomplishment for me. Being part of this 30 day marathon has helped me get in the spirit.
I have spent all day in my laundry today. I was shocked to take such a “real” look at my linen cupboard and so have seen job after job that has needed doing in there.
I have definately DONE 5 minutes worth 🙂
Completed late tonight….didn’t get a start on it until after 11 pm. Once I got started, I invested a bit more than the 5 minutes, since tomorrow is Saturday and I have the luxury of sleeping late. Wasn’t that hard to do, either, in my opinion. My linens lately have been one extreme or the other- the really nice stuff and the really ratty- those that I kept after recently replacing and updating my supply. Glad to have the opportunity to do this mission- I have kept the old and ratty sheets, towels, and washcloths….why? Just in case? Ha! Looking at them, it wasn’t hard to make a decision- it was a matter of coming to the realization that there is no need for me to keep hangimg onto this stuff, especially as I now have lovely things to replace the old. Out, out it all went. What a relief!
Completed late tonight….didn’t get a start on it until after 11 pm. Once I got started, I invested a bit more than the 5 minutes, since tomorrow is Saturday and I have the luxury of sleeping late. Wasn’t that hard to do, either, in my opinion. My linens lately have been one extreme or the other- the really nice stuff and the really ratty- those that I kept after recently replacing and updating my supply. Glad to have the opportunity to do this mission- I have kept the old and ratty sheets, towels, and washcloths….why? Just in case? Ha! Looking at them, it wasn’t hard to make a decision- it was a matter of coming to the realization that there is no need for me to keep hangimg onto this stuff, especially as I now have lovely things to replace the old. Out, out it all went. What a relief!
All Done! I didn’t realize how many sheets I wasn’t using.
Kitchen drawer holds one tablecloth and two sets of tablemats and they were sorted a couple of weeks ago. Don’t generally use table cloths and they get dirty too quickly and continually need to be washed.
Towels are on the bottom shelf of my pantry, I keep them rolled, including the old ones which get used a fair bit for cleaning etc, so unless they have holes in them I generally keep and use regularly.
Linen cupboard is actually a chest of drawers – one for me and one for my son – one for quilts and the last one for miscellaneous bits and pieces. I purged two sets of sheets (for my son to use when he works on his car), three quilt covers (which will be donated) and a few cushion covers and pillowcases.
All sorted now!!
Got rid of all of those old stained pillows. Yipee!
Done!!
Tatty! What a fun word from down under! Job done!