Im so proud of youcommitting to organize your home is the first step in actually doing it! Lets hit the Linen Closet!

If you have excess laundry to deal with, you probably have a linen closet that is less than user-friendly. Once you have clean towels, rags, and other linens to put away, you wont do it if your destination is less-than-appealing.

So lets organize it! This is the first place where youll have to be brutally honest with yourself about what you keep and what you get rid of. When I say, get rid of, I dont necessarily mean it ends in the trashif its towels, bedding, etc., that are in bad condition, your local animal shelter would be grateful for your donation. They always need things for the dogs and cats to lay on in their runs and crates, and your cast-offs in this area will be eagerly accepted.

1. Take stock of what you have for shelves. Do you have wooden or wire shelves? Do you have problems with things falling through if you have wire shelves? If so, you dont have to worry and go buy scrap wood to line the shelves witha simple piece of shelf-lining (you know, that bumpy green stuff that comes in rolls) will lay nicely and prevent small things from falling through. If necessary, put some of that down.

2. Now take a look and see what youve got in terms of extra bedding. How many beds in your home? You should have a minimum of 1 extra bedding-set for each bed, a maximum of 2. Think about it before you start to write me and tell me why you need 6 sets of bedding for each bedif you have small children who have nighttime accidents (or get the stomach flu in the middle of the night), you might have to change sheets in the morning (or the middle of the night if its barf!), and youll have some clean ones to put on. Youll put the dirty ones in the washer and get the machine started on that task. Then youll swap things to the dryer. Youll still have clean sheets on the bed and if youve got 2 extra sets, another clean one in the linen closet. So now with that argument won, go through your bedding. Do you have mis-matched pieces? If so, put them in the donation pile. Do you have twin pieces mixed in with king pieces? If so, separate them in to piles. Make sure everything is folded (Ill give you a pass on the fitted sheetsthose are impossible to fold neatly!). Now set aside one or two shelves for your bedding. Make sure that the bedding for the queen bed is not piled up with the stuff for the crib or twin bed. You can fold the stuff in squares or fold it in to long rectangles and then roll it. Either way is acceptableit just depends on how much space youve got.

Good jobnow well move on to towels and other things in Part Two of Organizing Your Linen Closet!