Decluttering Detail: Week 5 of 52 — Decluttering the Linen Closet

My linen closet has never been cleaned out.

And it got to the point that the door wouldn’t stay shut all the time. When it did and you opened it, either paper towels or rolls of toilet paper fell on your head.

Embarrassing “before” photo

To declutter it — first, I took everything out: the extra paper supplies, a caved-in “extra” metal shelf on the top row, a heating pad, spare bars of soap, boxes of tissues, bottles of distilled water, feather dusters, cleaning supplies and a lot of sheets, towels and washcloths.

Got rid of lots of sheets, towels and washcloths, too (see the pile here). Wish I knew how to fold the remaining sheets neatly, but, alas, I don’t…

Put the white towels in a pretty basket; those are for visitors (like my family when they all come to my house for Christmas).

And I put a couple of the fluffiest towels and the thickest wash cloths on a shelf for me to use!

Next, I went through the supply of thin-washclothes-that-I-use-for-cleaning-rags and put those in a giant clear plastic bag.

Sorted through the heating pad and hot-cold body wraps for various parts of the body, got rid of a few of those, and put the rest back in the closet together. (I rarely use them, but when you need one for a killer headache or something, you really need it.)

Installed a couple hooks to hang two long-handled feather dusters, a ceiling-fan cleaner, and a Swiffer on the closet wall to keep them out of the way — moved the hand sweeper from the back of my bedroom closet (where I forget I have it) to this closet where it’s handy to pull out and use, and that was pretty much it.