Getting Organizized

One of my goals for 2011 is to organize our living spaces a little better. Once our kitchen is finished, we'll take the opportunity to pare down the clutter that ends up in kitchen junk drawers and make use of all the wonderful interior drawer/cabinet organizers we purchased with our cabinets.

In the meantime, though, I thought I'd take on a smaller (and more affordable) organizing project--the linen closet. We usually try keep our closets fairly tidy but we let the linen closet go a little bit. You know, shoving things in there every which way and letting bulkier things like pillows and comforters kind of take over the space. So I took everything out, wiped down the shelves, and tried to refold towels/sheets in a more tidy way. I also took out those bulkier things and moved them into the hall closet and into this fabulous little storage bench from Overstock:

I put our throws and blankets in the bench and placed it under a window in our master bedroom. That way, we have easy access to extra blankets (in the few months we really need them in Florida) and a lot of space was freed up in the linen closet:

The bench listed on Overstock for $96.99. I used a promotional coupon and saved $6.79. So it came out to $93.15. Not bad for a small multifunctional piece of furniture (it's also a good place to sit and put our shoes on or place a bad or purse)

Another thing that helped the linen closet a little more streamlined were baskets. Yes, just a few baskets made a big difference. First, I moved out all the TP and paper towel that was haphazardly place in the hall closet (we always had to move aside the coats to get to it):

 

Then I placed it in an Ikea BRANAS basket ($12.99) and moved it over to the linen closet:

I also put all the small towels (dish rags and towels/microfiber cloths) into these baskets that I snagged from Target ($14.99 for the pair):

So, there you go, a bit more functional: