How to organize your bathroom linen closet with ease. Ditch the clutter and follow these simple ideas to completely overhaul your space.
One of the most difficult areas to organize can be your bathroom linen closet. Ditch the clutter and follow these simple ideas to completely overhaul your space.
DIY Faux Floating Shelves
The Before
Welcome to our hideous bathroom linen closet.
This closet has remained this way for the entire 5 months we’ve lived here. I refused to put anything in there other than that tote, mostly because of the mysterious substance on the back wall.
On Sunday, I cleared it out (took so much time *so much sarcasm*) and scrubbed it down with bleach. The vigorous cleaning removed some of the paint so I ended up having to do a quick coat to bring it back to life.
The Plan
I’ve been on a bit of an organization bender lately. While we weren’t ready to do a massive demo to this bathroom, we decided on a low-cost solution to hiding those ugly wire shelves in the linen closet.
Besides having my husband cut the wood, I did the rest of this project. That’s how easy it is.
Materials:
- 1/4″ plywood
- wood glue
- sandpaper
- stain
- finishing wax paste
- 1″ brad nails
- 1 x 2 pine boards
Tools:
- tape measure
- orbital sander
- table saw or circular saw**
- finishing nailer or hammer/nails
- clamps
Directions:
- Measure your existing shelves.
- Cut 1/4″ plywood pieces to fit over wire shelves.
- Cut the 1 x 2 pine board to the width of the front of your shelf.
- 1/4″ rabbit cut the back of your face wood. (optional, but recommended)
- Attach the pine board to the 1/4″ plywood using wood glue and clamps. Use your finishing nailer or a hammer and nails once clamped; about 4-6″ apart.
- Sand the entire shelf until smooth, removing any extra glue.
- Stain shelves. We used Minwax Golden Oak stain.
- Use finishing wax paste or poly to seal your shelves. Dries immediately.
- Slide your faux floating shelves over your existing wire shelves. Fit should be snug.
**If you don’t have the tools available, your hardware store should be able to cut your pieces to size for you.
I just LOVE the transformation. Using these faux floating shelves made a HUGE difference in this space.
How to Organize your Linen Closet
Because I had done such a massive purge before we moved, I didn’t have too much to organize in our linen closet and get rid.
Purging Tip: You shouldn’t need more than 2 sets of sheets per bed.
We now have 3 full size beds so I really only keep 2 spare sets in addition to the sheets that are currently on the beds.
If you’re placing your sheets/towels directly onto the linen closet shelves you will want to consider lining them or creating the Faux Floating Shelves.
Bins, Boxes + Baskets (Oh my…)
These are essentials to your linen closet organization!
Group like items together in bins so that they’re easy to find and don’t slide off anywhere.
This linen closet is in my kid’s bathroom, so I opted to keep their most used items at eye level (for them). This lazy susan holds all their hair and teeth products that they use every day.
I used 6″ clear bins to hold washcloths and longer clear trays for toiletries such as soap and lotions. They would also work well for organizing makeup in a drawer.
Fabric and weave baskets now hold the sheets and towels.
Tip: Store sheet sets inside of the pillowcase to keep sets from getting separated.
Extra toilet paper is stored at the bottom (again, kids) in this beautiful large weave basket. I seriously want more of these. Great quality!
The Result!
