Project One: Linen Closet!

Ready for Project One? I know I am! I have been excited all week to start my first project. Since it was a busy week, I had to wait until the weekend to adequately tackle this project. Since I dangled my linen closet in my first post, I thought it would be a perfect place to start.

When I opened my linen closet door, I have to shove pillows and blankets back in to shut the door. Classy, eh? Yep. That is my linen closet. Nothing like showing the world the disgusting lack of organization hiding behind closed doors.  

To prepare, I of course looked through Pinterest to see if I could gain any amazing insight. The closets looked great, but there were a few issues. 1. I was not willing to spend a lot of money on containers. 2. My linen closet is just for linens. Lots of the examples were multi-purpose, having bathroom supplies included. Those of course were the most organized looking because it was more interesting than just textiles.

Knowing that I wanted an organized closet, I took a chance on 5 different containers at the dollar store. I liked the color, they seem sturdy and the size was nice. Honestly, I was not sure what to do with them, but knew I would find something. The cost for all five was just $5.

My first course of action was to take EVERYTHING out of the closet. Needless to say, there were items in the closet I had forgotten about or didn't realize lived in there - like four curtain rods.

It felt so good to pull all things out of the closet. It looked so nice. So much potential... Until I looked behind me. The picture below shows all of the items that were in my closet. (Now, I thought about this picture after I started placing a few items back in the closet, but you definitely get the idea.) This is where I sat on a mound of blankets thinking, "What did I do? I have no idea where to go from here." So I just started sorting, folding the items to keep and slowly the project started to take shape. I obviously had to do something because this mess was not going to work.

To pull everything out and start organizing and refolding took about an hour. Seriously! I was amazed too. Then, we took a brief break get rid of some items. The pile below is everything that was far better suited at the local, friendly Goodwill store. We took three huge garbage bags stuffed with pillows, towels, blankets and sheets. Hopefully they find a good home because they can't stay here! 

While we were out, I wanted to head to the store again. Why you ask? Well, there were a few ideas I had. In the closet were three sleeping bags. Amazingly, one of the sleeping bags had a really nice storage sack (not on the bag). Both were living in the closet, just not together. Once I put the sleeping bag in the sack, it looked so nice and would stay looking nice. I wanted the other two sleeping bags in a sack too. I really wanted a few more of the large containers from the dollar store, but it wasn't an absolute must.

First store was Wal-mart. I found the mesh laundry sacks for $1.87. I purchased two for my sleeping bags. I also found a really nice brown laundry basket in the same aisle. My thought was to place the less used blankets in the basket up high in the closet. The basket was $7.97. I purchased two hoping both would fit, but I only used one.

Second store was The Dollar Tree. And they had a ton of the big containers in the same color. Yay! I purchased three more to make a total of five big containers. Now I felt like I could finish my project! 

And the big reveal! How much better does that look? It's ok, you can tell me it's fabulous! Once we returned from the store, there were a few more things to do. The hubby and I refolded the sheets and made sets. He also refolded the down comforter... I had tried, but failed miserably. All of this only took about 45 minutes.

My thought process: The sleeping bags and basket of blankets are on the top shelf because they are the least used items in the closet. Next shelf is my bins each filled with a set of sheets. I did try the idea on Pinterest of putting each set into a pillow case. Honestly, I hated it. I really liked them folded nicely better. All the towels are nicely folded. There are two small bins holding hand towels and wash cloths. The next shelf is extra blankets, another set of sheets and extra pillow cases. I placed the beach towels, extra pillows and extra blanket on the bottom because these are the items my kids need. Now, they can easily pull these items out of the closet without help.

Time: 1 hour 45 minutes + Shopping time
Cost: $8 dollar store containers, $11.71 for mesh bags and laundry basket