The year is just flying by and we’re almost at the half-way point of the 52-Week Decluttering Challenge. Can you believe it? Last week’s laundry room decluttering was quite a marathon for me. This week, I decided to tackle something a little easier. In week 23, it’s time for some linen closet decluttering.

This post was originally published in June 2021 and republished in June 2024.

When we think of clutter, the first thing that jumps to mind is what we see when we look around our homes. It’s one of the reasons many decluttering experts recommend starting with those areas. But clutter goes beyond what’s visible. Just moving things around and stuffing them in drawers and closets doesn’t make them go away. When we do that, we’re not really decluttering because we’ll still have to deal with what’s in those closets and drawers one day. The linen closet is one of those “out of sight, out of mind” areas for many of us.

Like the medicine cabinet, the linen closet is an area I hadn’t paid much attention to in the past. Will I find as many surprises here? Let’s get decluttering and find out!

What is the 52-Week Decluttering Challenge?

In this year-long journey, we’re tackling one task at a time with the goal of cleaning up and organizing our homes. If you’ve just joined us, no worries. You can jump right in with this week’s challenge. Just check out the first two posts in the series to download your free checklists.

• 52-Week Decluttering Challenge
• Week 1 – Easy Decluttering Checklist

You can get easy access to all previous weekly posts on the main Decluttering page.

Week 23 – Linen closet decluttering

Last fall, I did a first round of linen closet decluttering as part of the 31-Day Declutter Challenge. Before that, I don’t think I’d ever completely emptied out my linen closet. I learned a lot from that exercise, and I’ll share those learnings with you today.

This week’s decluttering and organizing tips

Before we get to what I got rid of, here are my tips and learnings from week 23.

How many sheets and towels do you really need?

As you take inventory of the contents of your linen closet, think about how many of each item you need. Then, keep only those items and get rid of the rest.

Let’s think about sheets. Realistically, most people need only 2 sets of sheets for each bed in your home.  Last year, in my first round of linen closet decluttering, I counted 9 sets of single bed sheets. We have only one single bed in our house. At one time, we had 2 single beds. When we got rid of the second bed, we never got rid of the sheets. My daughter loves her fleece sheets in winter, so I kept 4 sets of sheets—2 for winter, and 2 for summer.

Similarly, I recently saw a discussion thread in a Facebook decluttering group about the “right” number of towels you need to have per person. The biggest thing I learned from that discussion is there are lots of different views on whether towels should be used more than once before washing. For today, I’ll set aside the debate on the amount of water that’s wasted washing towels that have been used only once. But reading that thread did make me think about how many towels we really need.

In our house, we have 2 large bath towels per person—one to use, and a spare for when one’s in the wash. We also keep a couple of extra sets of towels for guests and, we have a few sets of hand towels because I change them more frequently. That seems to be enough so I can avoid constantly doing laundry. Then, in addition to our everyday towels, we have beach towels, and I have several decorative Christmas towels.

Once you’ve decided how many items you need, you can decide which items to keep and which you can safely get rid of.  

Keep things where they are used

Our linen closet is mostly sheets, towels and blankets. We keep kitchen towels and dishcloths in a drawer in the kitchen. One of my organizing philosophies is to store things close to where they will be used. I don’t want to run upstairs to get a dishcloth or tea towel every time I need a clean one.

Put commonly-used items at eye level

There’s not much to organize in the linen closet but, the one change I did make, was to put out-of-season and less-frequently-used seasonal items on the top and bottom shelves. That left the shelves with sheets and towels—the things I use the most—at eye level within easy reach.

What I got rid of

So, despite having got rid of a lot of items from my linen closet last fall, I was still able to clear out 15 items. Here’s what I got rid of this week.

• 1 cuddle blanket
• 1 old pillow
• 3 lace doilies
• 4 pillow shams
• 3 towels
• 2 washcloths
• 1 cloth napkin

So that’s week 23 done. Here’s the before and after picture of my linen closet. It’s a little less full and a lot more organized.

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2024 Update

It has been three years so I’m rebooting the 52-Week Decluttering Challenge to see how much I can get rid of in 2024.

Other than replacing worn out items, I haven’t added any new sheets, towels or blankets in the last three years. I didn’t expect to get rid of much from our linen closet this time around. Even so, I set aside 11 unneeded items.

If you have friends or family members who could benefit from a little less clutter in their lives, please share this post and spread the word!

What are your thoughts on the right number of sheets and towels we need? Tell us below.