Linen Closet Makeover

The linen closet is not exactly the most exciting space in the house. In fact, it probably ranks somewhere below the laundry room!

But with a little thought and planning, you can make the most of the linen storage space you already have. And who says you can’t even make it a beautiful spot that adds to the enjoyment of your home? I think more and more people are realizing that well-organized, attractive closets – even if they’re not the first place you take your guests! – can add to the quality and calm of your daily life.

Recently I was visiting my sister Leslie and her family near Boston. She lives in a Cape Cod-syle home, similar to what we might call a bungalow on the west coast. Like many older Capes, her house is big on charm but short on closet space.

Leslie recently inherited some lovely family linens – more than she probably needs or wants, but she thought her college-age children might enjoy some of them in a few years. So, she added them to her already crowded, narrow, floor-to-ceiling linen closet – measuring just 19 inches wide by 19 inches deep.

It didn’t work. Everything was crammed onto the five shelves. Yet she didn’t want the linens scattered in different places around the house. This started her thinking about whether there might be a way to make better use of the closet space.

• Start With a Plan
  My sister tends to approach spacing in her house pretty scientifically. (She says you have to – when you have four active family members sharing a small-ish home!) So she made a list of everything she wanted to store in the small closet: 4 tablecloths, 96 placemats, 170 napkins, 6 bath towels, sheets, pillowcases, and so forth. Oh, and did I mention she also keeps her vacuum and attachments in the linen closet?!

  I wasn’t sure it would be possible to get everything in – until I saw the results. Not only does everything fit, but it’s easy to take items out and put them back. Here’s how she did it, using a bit of professional help to get started, and finishing it herself.

• Movable Shelves
  First, she hired her favorite carpenter, Danny, for a couple of hours to remove the five stationary shelves and make room for nine movable ones. She calculated that this step alone would nearly double the useful space.

  Danny installed a sheet of plywood on each side of the closet interior, over the plaster walls. Before nailing the plywood to the walls, he used a router to make floor-to-ceiling vertical channels in each piece of plywood. Into these narrow channels he nailed the metal strips for supporting new movable shelves.

• Shelves of Differing Depths
  Leslie wanted to maximize the number of shelves, but there were constraints at the top and bottom of the linen closet.

  • Top
    Though the closet is floor to ceiling, the door is not. The closet is about a foot taller than the door opening. In order to have a shelf above the door opening, she wanted room at the front of the top shelf for access. So she had Danny make the top shelf about half the depth of the regular shelves.

  • Bottom
    As I mentioned, Leslie keeps her vacuum standing on the floor of the linen closet. Rather than lose the vacuum area for linen storage, she had Danny also make several lower shelves – behind the vacuum cleaner – about half the depth of the regular shelves.

• Contain and Label
  Once the new shelves were in place, my sister wanted to make sure it was easy to take things out of the closet and put them away when she’s done using them.

  Instead of tall stacks of napkins, for instance, that can be awkward when you want the ones at the bottom; Leslie put each set of napkins in a thin box and labeled it. She purchase inexpensive white cardboard boxes at The Container Store, and these give a clean uniform look to the closet. Then she color-coded her labels, so that it’s easy to spot each set – yellow napkins have a yellow label, and so forth. And be sure to write the number of napkins on the outside. That way, if you’re having ten guests, for example, you won’t have to go through the boxes to recall how many napkins are in each set.

  And last but not least...

• Using Recycled Materials Can Add Beauty– and That Individual Touch
  This step is definitely optional, but I love the way Leslie made use of recycled materials to add something special to her linen closet.

  • Old Wood for Shelving
    In New England where my sister lives, quaint churches dot the countryside, and it’s often possible to pick up old pews for sale – of gorgeous maple, oak, or even mahogany – at very modest prices. Leslie found a 1920s pew of thick maple with mahogany trim for $50 and used the wood for the closet shelves. Her carpenter cut the shelves to size, and the lovely seasoned wood – with a strip of mahogany on the outer edge – gives a special warm touch to the closet.

  • Leftover Wallpaper
    Using part of a wallpaper roll – left over from when she papered her bathroom many years ago – Leslie tied together the bath and the linen closet next to it, by using a wallpaper remnant on the back wall of the closet. The wallpaper, along with the old wood shelves, add a spot of beauty to an otherwise merely functional space.

With a few simple steps – such a replacing stationary shelves with movable ones, and placing linens in labeled boxes – you can transform a cluttered linen closet into an orderly storage space – and even a small place of beauty in your home!