How to Organize a Small Linen Closet

Learn how to organize a small linen closet with these easy tips and tricks that will have your sheets and towels looking neat and tidy in no time!

I recently did a poll in my Instagram stories asking how many of my followers had a small linen closet. I am definitely a member of the small linen closet club, and I figured that there had to be others out there. But I was shocked to learn that 84% (!!!) of my followers said they had a small linen closet as well!

Excuse me, all of you home builders out there? We would like roomier linen closets, please!!!

Well, until they get around to that, it seems like the large majority of us are going to have to learn to work with our tiny linen closets, so today I wanted to share a few tricks that have helped us make our small space really work for our family.

8+ Small Linen Closet Organization Ideas that Are Beautiful and Brilliant

This post contains affiliate links. For more information, see my disclosures here.

This is what our linen closet had looked like since we moved in nearly four years ago…

It wasn’t terrible, but since it is in the laundry room and we were giving that space a facelift anyway, I decided to do a little linen closet overhaul at the same time.

So how do you maximize space in a small linen closet?

The key to small linen closet organization is to be really intentional about the items that are stored in the closet, and then streamline the contents of the linen closet to make it uniform.

Here are my top 8 small linen closet organization ideas that can help make that happen:

1- Do not overstuff the linen closet.

When we have a lot of stuff to fit into a not-so-huge space, it is tempting to fill up every nook and cranny that we have available. In my experience, though, overstuffing a space is just asking for disaster.

Clutter tends to breed more clutter, while an organized space tends to incentivize us to keep it organized. If we’re always dealing with an overly full linen closet where it’s hard to fit our items and everything is smushed and difficult to access, we will continually be frustrated and the linen closet will just get messier and messier.

So what do we do when we have more “stuff” than will fit comfortably in our space?

2- Prioritize what is stored in the linen closet.

If we’re working with a small space, we might have to get a little creative with how we store our items. When we moved into this house, I quickly realized that I wasn’t going to be able to store everything in the linen closet that I had in our last house. So I chose the items that were most important to me to keep in there– towels, in our case– and looked for smart ways to relocate other items.

Where to Relocate Other Items

The other category besides towels that was taking up a lot of space in the linen closet was our sheets.

So rather than try to stuff them all in (see rule #1!), I grabbed a couple of wire bins and used them to store an extra set of sheets in each bedroom closet. This not only freed up space in my linen closet, but it also kept the sheets closer to where we actually use them, making them easier to access.

You can see our spare set of sheets in the wire bin on the bottom right shelf in this photo.

Many of us often store cleaning supplies in the linen closet as well. Since our tiny linen closet didn’t have space for them, I created a cleaning caddy for our upstairs level and keep it under the sink in our guest bathroom.

I also keep a cleaning caddy for our downstairs level under the sink in the kitchen. Again, this freed up space in the linen closet and kept it from getting over cluttered.

I relocated spare toiletries to under our bathroom sinks as well.

Depending on your home’s layout and how you use your items, your priorities for what to keep in the linen closet might be different, and that’s okay! The key is to relocate excess items to an area that is not overly full, putting them closer to where they’re actually used if possible.

3- Do not store/buy more linen closet items than necessary.

Until I decided to reorganize our linen closet, we were still using towels that we had gotten for our wedding nearly 14 years ago. We even had some towels that we had used in college before that! It was definitely time for an upgrade, as our items had become significantly worn out in that time.

Rather than purchasing the same number of towels, washcloths, and hand towels that we were getting rid of, I paid close attention to how many of those items we actually used on a regular basis. I then purchased only the number of towels that I knew we would use, eliminating the excess that we had before.

This helped us to save some valuable space while still having enough towels to meet our needs.

4- Keep like items together.

Once we’ve determined what we want to keep in our linen closet space, we’ll want to arrange those items by category, keeping like items together.

In my linen closet, I house mostly towels, but I kept all of our bath towels together on the lower shelves and stored our beach towels– which we use less often– up high.

If I had space for more items, I would also keep all of our sheets together on a shelf, all of my cleaning supplies together on a shelf, all of my toiletry items together on a shelf, etc.

5- Fold sheets and towels in a neat and uniform way for ultimate linen closet organization.

Okay, so I may be a smidge obsessed with folding. But I truly believe that having towels and sheets folded in a neat, uniform way helps to keep the rest of the linen closet looking tidy as well.

There are many different ways to fold towels, so feel free to choose the method that works best for your linen closet. I just always try to abide by the following guidelines:

(The same guidelines would apply to sheets. Learn how to fold a fitted sheet here.)

Here’s a quick GIF showing the standard way I fold our towels:

Basically, I fold the towel into thirds widthwise. Then I fold it in half lengthwise. And then I fold it into thirds lengthwise.

If I’m working with a bath sheet or have especially shallow shelves, I will try to fold the towel even smaller:

I start the same way, by folding the towel into thirds widthwise. I then fold the towel in half lengthwise. But then to make it smaller, I fold each end in toward the middle and then fold the towel in half again. (So the final step folds the towel into fourths rather than thirds, as in the previous GIF example.)

(We have the IKEA FLODALEN bath sheets, hand towels, and washcloths.)

6- Use bins or baskets to corral smaller linen closet items when possible.

Little items can easily get messy or toppled, so if I can provide some extra stability with containment, I will!

In our linen closet, I used the IKEA LANKMOJ boxes to keep the mesh bags we use for washing delicate items neat and tidy…

…and also to corral our washcloths, which I file folded.

Bins, baskets, and even jars are great for keeping smaller items organized in the linen closet too.

7- Create a solid surface in the linen closet if needed.

This isn’t absolutely necessary. Wire shelving can totally work well in some households, so if it’s working for you, roll with it!

But if you are having trouble with items falling over or slipping through the cracks (or you just don’t love the look of wire shelving), a solid surface option might work better for you.

We recently made these simple wooden shelf covers to hide our wire shelves.

And we have also completely replaced a lot of the closet shelving in our house to get rid of the wire type. IKEA’s BOAXEL system and the Elfa System from The Container Store are both great options.

8- Keep a stool close by for reaching high items in the linen closet.

Our family is not the most vertically gifted family around. 😉 So I keep stools all around our house so that we can reach high items more easily.

If I can reach the items on the top shelves, I’m more likely to put things back neatly rather than just trying to stuff the items wherever I can reach!

I was a little perplexed about how I was going to fit a stool into our linen closet with it being so small. But then I found this cute little folding stool (similar) at Dollar General. It ended up being the perfect solution!

I just fold it up and tuck it behind our collapsible laundry baskets at the bottom of the linen closet when I’m finished using it.

Bonus: Consider adding a pop of color or pattern to the back of your linen closet!

Adding a pretty touch to the space isn’t absolutely necessary for making it functional, but I’ve found that when I love the way my space looks, I’m more motivated to keep it organized too!

I painted the back of my linen closet Sherwin Williams Rainwashed, mixed at half strength, and the pop of aqua makes me smile every time I open the door.

(While I was at it, I painted the door Behr Chain Reaction as well!)

I’ve also used wallpaper to give closets an extra bit of interest and have loved the result, so that’s an option too!

So those were the top tips I used when I wanted to organize our small linen closet. I hope they will be helpful for you as you set about creating your own organized linen closet!

Linen Closet Organization Sources

• Mesh Bags
• Folding Stool
• Wooden Box
• Lidded Glass Jar
• Dryer Balls
• Wooden Shelf Covers
• Collapsible Laundry Baskets
• Paint Color
• Door Paint Color

I know my list isn’t exhaustive, so let me know your best linen closet organization tip in the comments below!

Thanks so much for following along! Have a great day!

This post contains affiliate links. For more information, see my disclosures here.