A Pro Organizer Decluttered My Messy Linen Closet

My husband and I live in a two-bedroom townhome, and out of all the places we’ve lived in over the years, this one is by far the largest. In each of our previous apartments, we had a small outdoor storage closet where we stored seasonal decor and other items we didn’t have a spot for indoors. When we moved to this place a year and a half ago, we noticed a small door off the small back deck and assumed it was another storage closet. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t. 

We realized then that even though this home had the most square footage we’d ever lived in, it had the least storage space. So much to our dismay, we packed our lone hallway linen closet to the gills. I felt a sense of dread every time I opened the door to our poor closet. We had packed so much in there, it was a complete mess. 

The time had come to quit procrastinating and declutter, so I got help from professional organizer Natalie Ron at Swoon Spaces. She helped me combat the chaos and I am forever grateful! Check out some of her tips below. 

According to Ron, the first step is to empty your space and categorize everything you’ve taken out. “This allows you to see each category all at once, which makes editing much easier,” Ron says. Taking everything out of my packed linen closet was in a word — stressful. 

Ron was with me via text, and she cheered me on every step of the way. She reassured me that these overwhelming feelings were completely normal, so don’t worry if emptying one of your spaces makes you want to run and hide. Even though there was a lot of stuff — seasonal decor, bedding, craft supplies, and miscellaneous items — categorizing everything was pretty simple.

Next was creating toss, donate, and keep piles. But instead of sorting through all of the clutter, Ron suggested going through one category at a time. This was incredibly helpful and softened my overwhelm. She also shared one piece of advice that kept me moving forward and not second-guessing my decluttering decisions. “Be brutal!” she says. “Think about your future self and what you want to have to manage moving forward. Anything you keep needs to be managed and needs a place to be stored.”

Since I started with seasonal decor, it was easy to see how my style has evolved over the years and I was able to let things go to the donate or toss pile. I continued this with the other categories. If I had grown out of something or just couldn’t see myself using items anymore — they had to go. 

Once everything was edited, I could see which items needed to be put inside the linen closet. I opted to use storage bins I already owned, but this is the time to see if you need to purchase additional storage items. Ron suggests measuring and finding products that fit the exact size of your space to narrow down your options.

One hiccup I ran into was realizing the space between our shelves was annoyingly close. My husband and I are renters, and it was clear that the wire shelves weren’t necessarily added with a ton of thought. Our biggest bins were too tall to be placed on a shelf, or even on the floor, so we needed to make some changes. We thought we might need to move the shelves, which would have involved taking out a handful of screws and putting them somewhere new, but we found a simple hack. Instead of taking the entire shelf off the wall, we lifted it and attached it to the shelf above it, creating more space on the floor for the bins. 

As the final step, Ron suggests labeling everything. “Labels are important instruction manuals that ensure your investment in time, energy, and money is worthwhile,” she says. “Labels also ensure that systems will last long term, no matter who is using them every day.” I’ve ordered some plastic clip-on labels that are simple and pretty. They attach easily to baskets and will be like the cherry on top of my organized linen closet!

At the end of the day, this organization project didn’t cost a dime since I used what I had. I sigh with relief as I open the linen closet now, no longer in fear that something may come crashing down on me. Taking the time to sort through everything, declutter, and reassemble was worth the time and energy it took!