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'I'm an organisation expert. Here's exactly how I organise my linen cupboard.'

In Mamamia’s Parenting Hacks series, real women share their tips and tricks on everything from meal prep to organisation to nailing the morning routine.

This week, Steph Pase shares her ultimate hacks for organising your linen cupboard.

The linen closet is one of those areas in the home that can quickly become complete chaos.

It’s also one of those areas that items can be kept and never used, so it’s time to get this space in your house organised. 

It may surprise you what you find in yours!

While you're here, watch how you can make your room look bigger. Post continues after video.


Video via Mamamia.

Firstly, DECLUTTER!

There is no use trying to organise a space that is filled with clutter and items you no longer use. Go through every item in your linen closet and either KEEP, DISCARD, or DONATE.

If you have tons of old towels hanging around, you can recycle them as cleaning rags. Otherwise, get rid of them! 

Now we can get into organising.

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Sort items into likeness.

This speaks for itself. Fold and match items by likeness; towels, pillowcases, beach towels, flat sheets, fitted sheets, etc. 

This way, it's easier to allocate areas of the closet into categories and also maintain a functional but appealing space.

Section into categories.

Now this seems obvious but I know plenty of us have towels mixed with bedding, the kids bedding mixed with the king sized sheets, and pillowcases mixed with sheets. 

So let's cut our area into quarters: adults bedding, towels, kids' bedding and misc items (beach towels, throw blankets, weekend bags etc).

Image: Supplied. 

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These four sections will vary for different people and different living situations. But create four distinct areas of the closet so you will know what categories belong in what section. 

Also, be sure to create these categories to be functional. For example, with our linen closet, the side closest to the bathroom is where I keep our towels.

Use tubs or storage cubes.

Using tubs or storage cubes is one of the easiest ways to keep your linen closet sectioned and organised. It is a way to structure your closet without having to change the actual shelving. 

Tubs are also perfect to keep space looking neat and tidy.

Image: Supplied. 

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One main point I must stress is to make sure the tubs you use are big enough to fit items such as bedding and towels. You don’t want to waste money on tubs that will not be big enough. 

I got my material cubes from IKEA, and they come in a range of colours. I got the dark grey, which looks amazing with my home's light grey and blush colour scheme.

Hide mismatching items.

One main reason for using tubs is the fact you can hide any mismatched items or anything that can look potentially 'messy' on an open shelf, such as kids' towels, beach towels, pillowcases, fitted sheets, etc.

In my tubs I have:

  • Weekend bags
  • Flat sheets
  • Fitted sheets
  • Quilt covers
  • Kids fitted sheets
  • Kids bedding
  • Kids pillowcases

Image: Supplied. 

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Label it!

Now if you’re anything like me, you love to slap a label on it!

By using labels (especially if you're using tubs) this creates a clear structure and then other members in the home will know exactly where things go. 

Image: Supplied. 

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I use labels from Little Label Co. For the backing of the labels, I bought a light grey cardstock from Kmart and glued it on to the tubs with a hot glue gun! You can also use tags tied on with labels.

Alternatively, if you don't want to use tubs, you can blu-tack labels onto the actual shelf edge to keep track of where everything is stored.

This article originally appeared on Steph Pase's blog Just Another Mummy Blog and has been republished here with full permission. You can follow her on  Instagram or check out Steph Pase Planners here.

You can catch up on our previous Parenting Hacks articles here: 

Feature Image: Instagram/@justanothermummyblog.

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