Linen Closet Makeover

Making Most Linen Closet space left on your hard drive

Linen cupboard is not the most interesting places in the house. In fact, it probably ranks somewhere below a laundry!

But a little thought and planning, you can make the most of your clothes you already have. And who says you can not even make it a beautiful place which adds to the enjoyment of your family? I think more and more people understand that a well-organized, attractive cabinets - even if they are not in the first place you take your guests! - You can add to the quality and tranquility in your daily life.

I recently visited my sister Leslie and her family near Boston. She lives in Cape Code syle house, similar to what we might call the bungalow on the west coast. Like many older Capes, her big house on the charm, but little cupboard space.

Leslie recently inherited some lovely family paintings - more than likely, it needs and wants, but she believes her student-age children can enjoy some of them for several years. Thus, she added them to its already crowded, narrow, floor-to-ceiling linen closet - measuring only 19 inches wide and 19 inches deep.

It did not work. All were crammed into five shelves. Nevertheless, she does not want canvases scattered in different places around the house. This started her thinking about the way can be more efficient use of cabinet space.

* Start with a plan
My sister, as a rule, approach in his home range is very scientific. (She said you have to - if you have four active members of the exchange of small-ish family home!) So, she made a list of everything she would like to store in a small closet: 4 tablecloths, 96 placemats, napkins 170, 6 bath towels, sheets, pillowcases, and so on. Yes, and I did not mention it also maintains its investment in a vacuum and the linen closet?

I was not sure could be anything - until I saw the results. Not only does not fit all, but it's easy to take the items and put them back. Here's how she did it by using a little professional help to get started, and finishing his own.

* Movable Shelves
First, she hired her favorite carpenter, Danny, a couple of hours to remove the five stationary shelves and space for nine of them are movable. It is estimated that this step is itself almost twice as valuable space.

Danny a sheet of plywood on each side of a wardrobe interior, a stucco wall. Before the wonderful plywood to the wall, he uses a router to the floor-to-ceiling vertical channels in each piece of plywood. In these narrow channels, he nailed metal strips to support new mobile shelves.

* Shelves of different depth
Leslie wants to increase the number of shelves, but there were restrictions on the top and underwear from the cabinet.

O Top
Despite the fact that the word cabinet to the ceiling, doors not. Wardrobe some feet above the opening of doors. In order to have a shelf above the door opening, she wanted a room at the front of the top shelf for access. So Danny do it top shelf about half the depth of the regular shelves.

On the bottom
As I mentioned, Leslie keeps her vacuum, standing on the floor linen closet. Rather than losing the vacuum area for storing clothes, it was Danny also make a few lower shelves - for vacuum cleaner - about half the depth of the regular shelves.

* Maintain and Label
Once the new shelves were in place, my sister wants to make sure that it was easy to take things from the cupboard and put them away when it is done using them.

Instead, the high stacks of napkins, for example, that might be inconvenient if you want to bottom; Leslie put each set of towels in a thin box and labeled it. It is to buy inexpensive white cardboard boxes on the container Store, and they provide a clean uniform look in the cupboard. Then the color of the label, so it is easy to find each set - yellow napkins with yellow label, and so on. And do not forget to specify the number of napkins in the street. Thus, if you have ten guests, for example, you do not have to go through the boxes to remember how many napkins in each set.

And last but not least ...

* The use of recycled materials can add beauty and individual Touch
This, of course, necessarily, but I like the way Leslie uses recycled materials to add something special for your linen closet.

On the old wood for shelving
In New England, where my sister lives, baroque churches a rural area, and it is always possible to find old Benches may be for sale - in excellent maple, oak, mahogany or even - at a very modest price. Leslie found the 1920's, the chair of thick red maple tree to finish at $ 50, and used the wood for the cabinet shelves. Her carpenter cut shelves to size and nice seasoned wood - mahogany with a strip along the outer edge - gives a special warm touch the closet.

O remaining Wallpaper
The use of a roll of wallpaper - is the day when she papered her bathroom many years ago - Leslie tied together and bath linen closet next to it, using the remnants of wallpaper on the back of the cupboard. Wallpaper, along with the old wood shelves, add a spot of beauty in the otherwise merely functional space.

In a few simple steps - such replacing fixed with movable shelves, and placement of paintings in labeled boxes - you can transform the cluttered with clothes in the closet orderly storage space - and even a small place of beauty in your home!

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