Friday, December 9, 2011

63 Basement Progress: Laundry Land Linen Cabinet

Our laundry room is massive and packs a lot of storage punch!



We are grateful and know how fortunate we are for this, as typical laundry lands are the size of a small closet. 

Of course, I love that I am able to use the space to hold all sorts of home maintenance items, like lower level cleaning supplies, painting products, overflow of bulk household item purchases, light bulbs and vacuum attachments.  And now, it's also the home for our lower level linen cabinet.

Our basement was never finished with a linen closet.  There really wasn't a great place to put one in when we originally finished the lower level, so the first time around we just stashed our extra bedding and bathroom linens in our master bedroom closet.  Now that we have remodeled and opened up the previous walk-in closet into a full dressing room, we lost the linen storage.  We did, however, address the need for a linen cabinet when making tweaks to the laundry room throughout the reno process.  The treadmill moved from the laundry room to the dressing room, and the toy/game cabinet from our old playroom, moved into the laundry room.

Still with me?  Confusing, I know.  Just making what we have work for us.

Now that the basement reno is nearly complete, and we just relocated ourselves and our master bedroom back downstairs, we really needed to evaluate how we were using the cabinet for our extra bedding essentials.


I started out by adding some doors to the front of the cabinet {which is all part of the EFFECTIV line at IKEA}, just to conceal things a bit, since there was already so much open storage in the room.  Plus, I don't really look forward to sleeping on dusty sheets....

The top of the cabinet holds some extra coverlets and puppy bath towels.


The next portion of the cabinet holds our bed sheets, pet supplies, extra cleaning rags, blankets, shower curtains, pillow shams and other household linens.


To fold our bedsheets {which is typically a nightmare}, I turned to my BFF, Martha Stewart, to show me the way.  Once the sheets were folded, I just tucked them into their matching pillow case to keep everything corralled and together.  Now, when we need to change our bedding, I can just grab the entire set and not have to dig for matching pieces!


For the rag and pet supply bins, I just printed out some simple labels on cardstock and clipped them to the bins with cheapo clothes pins that I Mod Podged with scrapbook paper.



The two baskets on the lower shelf is where the random/miscellaneous household linens are folded and contained.


The bottom cabinet holds our extra duvet inserts, since we tend to switch them out based on the current season.


We contain our upper level linens a little differently.  Since we use our technical teeny tiny linen closet to hold our medications and vacuum cleaner, we just use a chest of drawers in the guest room to house all of the upstairs bedding in a very similar manner to here.

My biggest linen closet tip is to only keep 2-3 sets of sheets max, per bed.  That way, if you are washing one set, you can keep the other set on the bed.  We have the same philosophy for towels.  We keep all towels in cabinets right in the bathroom, and each person has two sets of towels, so when one set is being laundered, the other is out on a hook.  This really cuts down on the amount of storage we need for all of our linens in our home, and keeps our cabinets and drawers streamlined.

Now that I am writing up this post and looking at the pictures, I am really wanting to dress up the front of that linen cabinet.  So much so that it just went on the ol' home project list!  Wahoo!

So how do your show your linens some love?  In the laundry room?  A linen closet?  A cabinet?  What other linen closet organizing tips and tricks do you have?

63 comments:

  1. Sometimes when I'm reading you blog, I like to just zen out and pretend I'm looking at my own perfectly organized house...

    But in all seriousness, I live in an apartment with minimal storage. I keep bedding on a high shelf in my bedroom closet, but a need to get a few bins like you've shown to keep them contained. Thanks for the inspiration!

    ~Stop Me if You've Heard This One

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  2. I could so live in this room despite having to do laundry!!!

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  3. Would it be a problem if I moved into your laundry room? ;) So beautiful. I follow Martha's rules on folding sheets as well. Great tips here as always. Have a wonderful weekend.

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  4. WOW - now that is a laundry room! I love the idea of putting the sheets in the pillow case - so smart!

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  5. It looks gorgeous! I'd love to do some laundry in there :)

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  6. Everyone needs a laundry room as gorgeous as yours, and then everyone would WANT to do laundry. I'd be purposely dirtying my clothes everyday.

    And the sheets in the pillowcase idea is fantastic. Organized genius.

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  7. Man I dream of having a room like that someday. Great job! I am reallly thinking I have to jazz up the basement area we do laundry in :). I love all the info here, great ideas!

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  8. Love your sheet idea in the pillow case - will give that a try! Also, where did you get the green pet bins? Love that idea!

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  9. I love your laundry room! And I love how organised everything is ^^
    I love to be organised myself, everything has to have a place after all :) and it puts me on edge a little to see un-organised spaces go to waste! So finding this blog has made me so happy ^-^

    Along with your amazing organising skills, I also love your style: clean, fresh and very pretty :)

    I'm sure every great organised girl would crave a room like this :)

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  10. Oh wow. I would marry your laundry room. It's gorgeous!! We actually have a pretty large room attached to our kitchen where the W/D are but it's an ugly room with all our tools and junk back there. You have given me hope that I can turn that room from ugly to fab!!

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  11. I am very jealous of your oh so nice and clean looking laundry room! You've just inspired me to go work on our extra linens and organize our guest room (which is currently the crashing place for all the extras from our bathroom while we're repainting it). Thanks for all the beautiful spaces and great ideas.

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  12. I am definitely jealous of your laundry room. LOL! I, too, use Martha Stewart's sheet folding method and put my whole sheet set in one if its pillowcases. I love it! We are fortunate enough to have a fairly large linen closet so I'm trying to think of ways to keep it organized with everything in it, along with it still looking nice. I think having some baskets will definitely help, especially for the hand towels, wash cloths and rags. Thank for the tips!

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  13. @GrammaGrits,

    I got the bins awhile back on clearance from Bed, Bath & Beyond - they are similar to these: http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/product.asp?SKU=118190

    I also found you can get them in just about any color on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003KWLKEA/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=iheaorga-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B003KWLKEA

    xoxo!
    Jen

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  14. Your laundry room would definitely make me WANT to do laundry just to get to hang out in there! Love it! Do you use a special program to make all of your labels and templates?

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  15. I changed the knob on my linen cupboard from a nasty faux metallic 60's thing to a round ceramic knob with pretty flowers on it. That's the extent of my linen love :D Sweet laundry room! I get a laundry corner with hard cement floors next to the furnace .

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  16. OMG OMG OMG. We are SO close to owning our first home (close on Dec 22) and we have a good sized laundry room. Not this big, but good sized. I am so in love with the colors and organization scheme of this. THANK YOU for the inspiration.

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  17. Wow Jen, I love your laundry room! Love how nice and neat it is! Any chance you are coming down south, maybe Raleigh, anytime soon!? I so desperately need some organizing help!

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  18. I love those little tags on your bins- and what a great idea to just use scrapbook paper and clothes pins! I have some fabric shopping bags that I use in our laundry roomm for misc. storage and I can never remember what's in which one. Might have to steal that idea!

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  19. @Liliana, I beg my husband daily to let us move to Raleigh and I have never even been there. :) It would be a good excuse to make a "visit"!

    xoxo,
    Jen

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  20. Hi Jen-
    I am so jealous of your HUGE laundry space. Where did you get the ironing board cover. I can't find a cute one anywhere! I've been looking for yellow.
    Thanks!

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  21. Hi Tracy!

    I found it at HomeGoods, it's MacBeth Collection, she also has it on her site here: http://www.themacbethcollection.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=macbeth&Product_Code=M-7000

    xoxo!
    Jen

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  22. I can't get past the picture of your rug. Where, oh where did you get that?????

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  23. oooh it's so clean and streamlined! love it! and i especially love that rug :-)

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  24. Right now I'm on the mission to install a utility sink next to my washer/dryer in my tiny laundry area and just haven't found what I want but what you have looks perfect...I'd love to know what type of sink you have next to your washer

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  25. I am super jelly of this room. I agree with he other commenters the world would be a much better place of we all had laundry rooms like this!

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  26. Hi Jen,
    How beautifully organized! I wish I had a laundry room, I live in an apartment!! If I ever have one I want it to be as beautiful and organized as yours!! Luv

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  27. Jaw is on the floor Jen! And I LOVE the letter to Santa! Printing it out for my girls to fill out tonight!

    p.s. So fun to see you on Centsational Girl! Congrats on that!! :)

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  28. Wow, what a great and super organized room. LOVE IT!

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  29. love your laundry room and the clothespins are super cute. I subscribe to your limited linens rule and not only did things match better and the closet stay neater, but the amount of dirty towels and sheets were reduced considerably. you spaces are inspiring.

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  30. We have a house that has zero built in storage, excpet for our tiny bedroom closet. No linen cupboard at all. So I store the sheets for our bed under our bed in a box on wheels, I also use the Martha method for folding & it allows me to get three sets of sheets in a not huge box. Two sets winter & 1 spare summer (other is on our bed at the moment) set. Love your laundry room!

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  31. I always love your organization ideas, and have implemented some of the the ideas throughout my house. I don't mind doing the initial organizing, but have trouble with the hubby and kids putting things back where they're supposed to go without nagging.

    How do you get your family on board with keeping things clean and organized?

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  32. Please share where you found the rug. Beautifull!

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  33. I didn't think I could ever be envious of a laundry but oh my goodness I could live in this room. It's my colour too. You've done an amazing job!

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  34. Jen, everything you do is amazing! I enjoy your blog so much. Your rug seems to be a hit, I love it every time I lay my eyes on it.

    I have the same question as "Heart and Haven", how DO you get the fam on board? I don't think I ever could, well the hubby anyway, as I already have my only child, who's just over 2, helping out with his own things and even putting laundry in the hamper, lol.

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  35. This is fabulous and I do LOVE the colour green. Its good to get your ideas on the amount of towels and sheets one should have. How often do you wash your towels? and bed sheets? I am curious as I wash my towels everyday, bed sheets once every 2 weeks. love to know your thoughts.

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  36. What a beautiful room! Thank you for sharing it.
    I love the shelves in the first picture, they are so much more interesting and stylish than the usual thin ones. Could you possible share where they came from?

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  37. What a beautiful room! Thank you for sharing it.
    I love the shelves in the first picture, they are so much more interesting and stylish than the usual thin ones. Could you possible share where they came from?

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  38. Now this is my dream laundry room. So gorgeous. It makes my heart skip a beat. With 5 small children i sooo need this. Where did you get the wire bins that you use in the expedit for paper towels and such?

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  39. What a great place:), i poped here to be onest donot remember... but for sure will be back to read all blog, so many great tips. It is middle of the night in Poland so good night and see you tomorrow :) and sorry for all mistakes :)

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  40. You need some cute laundry soap to display on those shelves! ;) http://www.etsy.com/listing/58253832/laundry-soap-fabric-softener-all-in-one

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  41. I like the bucket you have on top of the washer! I have mine on the pedestals and have "just" enough room for a basket or something between that and the cabinets! Always great ideas to be found here!

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  42. How somebody manages to make laundry look beautiful is quite beyond me! x

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  43. Love all of your spaces, but this one has been the most inspiring. I have a pantry "catch all" type room that could really use a facelift. I love the wire baskets holding paper towels and the clothes pins clipped to cloth baskets. Awesome idea. I'm ready to put away some of those rubbermaid containers and make a beautiful space that I WANT to keep clean. It'll be the first project I tackle in the new year. Thanks for the inspiration!

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  44. So perfectly organized! Sighing to myself in envy.

    tictaczo.blogspot.com

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  45. Oh that is such a wonderful laundry room! Wish I had the means to organize mine with such beautiful shelves and baskets. :)

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  46. I love your site, all your ideas and your pictures. I have to say I am addicted to I Heart Organizing. I hope you don't mind that I use your site for inspiration! Keep up the great work!

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  47. I am about to order that same rug from Urban Outfitters that you have in your laundry room. Is the color vibrant? Have you tried to clean it yet?

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  48. I'm totally in love with the shelving unit you are using for storage of linens and cleaning supplies. Such inspiration. And way better than my metal shelving unit I have now!

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  49. I never thought I would say this BUT I am so envious of your laundry room! We are just in the beginning stages of attacking ours, so thank you for the great inspiration!

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  50. Beautiful room! I could enjoy doing laundry in there. My house has a small laundry room and no linen closets so I keep the linens in the bedroom closets. Thanks always for your inspiration! By the way, where do you keep your vacuum cleaner? I didn't see it in your garage.

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  51. We really don't have much closet/cabinet space in our house . . . it's a super old home and just wasn't built with a lot of storage in it besides the attic and basement. So what we've done with sheets and things is to keep them (i think we only have 2 sets per bed) together in underbed storage bins right under the beds they go with. That way they are always right on hand when you need to change them and you never have to unfold to figure out whether you have the right size. Works for us!

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  52. I LOVE loVe love your rug!! Where did you get it. The most gorgeous laundry room ever!! Thanks for the inspiration - I want!!

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  53. The rug is from Urban Outfitters: http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/urban/catalog/productdetail.jsp?id=18491175&color=000&itemdescription=true&navAction=jump&search=true&isProduct=true&parentid=A_FURN_RUGS

    Thanks again for all the kind comments! I agree we are pretty darn lucky to have such a great space!

    xoxo,
    Jen

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  54. Beautiful! I am inspired =) I hope you don't mind if I share this on my blog (with links back of course)!

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  55. I need to LOVE my laundry room too! Thanks for the inspiration. What's the list above your washer and dryer? From Heidi

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    1. Hi Heidi!

      It's a stain removal chart that I found over on MarthaStewart.com.

      xoxo!
      Jen

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  56. Where did you get the wire baskets for the shelving unit? Assuming its
    http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/70201811/#/40047675
    Would love this for our garage! THANKS! lindsay.hootenatgmail.com

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    1. Hi Lindsay!

      You are correct, it's the White Expedit from IKEA and I found the wire baskets on clearance awhile back from Home Decorators, however they have since been discontinued.

      I have since seen similar options at HomeGoods.

      xoxo,
      Jen

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  57. Love the idea's - just inspirational - already using Martha Stewarts hint for the bed sheets - it works very well.

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  58. wow, I think I need you in my life. I'm a going to be a new follower! thanks!

    Leanne

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  59. Your useful house cleaning tips your laundry room is fabulous. Pardon me if I say this but I am awed at how organized the room is ,I swear I never would mind sleeping in this room. Thank you for sharing your tips. Now you just gave me a great summer project. xoxo

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