My linen closet makeover
If you follow me on Instagram stories you might have seen that I have a closet problem in my house. No, it’s not a lack of storage, just total disorganization in any space that can hide behind a door. I have been so busy with life that I’ve never made the time for closet organization in this house — until now!
Before we get to the makeover I wanted to share a helpful article with expert organizing tips for a tidy home in 2021 with you.
I got brave one day and showed a video on Instagram just how bad our linen closet was, and I got so lucky that the amazing Krista at Neatly Done saw it and offered to come help me.
Here’s a before photo to give you an idea just how bad our linen closet was. Pretty terrible, right?
I promise I know how to fold, but just decided to stuff clean towels and sheets into the closet, haha.
We also just had way too many things that we weren’t using. Pure chaos. I made an appointment with Krista, and she tasked me with pulling everything out of the closet and making keep and donate piles beforehand.
I tossed all expired meds, which I found was nearly half of our supply. And wow, I also realized that we have 1,684,823 lightbulbs in the house and never need to buy another one in this lifetime, ha! You’ll be happy to know that I found a new home for all the lightbulbs in the basement.
I also removed the old and stained yellow colored contact paper from the shelves, ew. Krista recommended replacing it with crisp white and I was totally on board for that.
I ended up with 4 trash bags of donations, which Krista told me to set aside because as part of her services, she drops off the donations for you. Score!
About Neatly Done home organizing
Before I show you the rest, I wanted to take a moment to tell you a little more about Krista and her company Neatly Done, which helps with minimizing clutter and stress, identifying better systems for managing your belongings, and designing beautiful spaces in your home that inspire you to stay organized.
Neatly Done aims to accomplish this with each project, creating custom designs to fit each client’s needs. I highly recommend Krista and her assistant Monica. They did a great job, were so easy to work with, and had some great ideas for our space. From the moment I met Krista at our consultation, I fell in love with her. She’s a gem!
If you’re in Kansas City, she offerers lots of organization services for you to choose from.
- Full service home organization
- DIY home organization
- Moves and relocation
- Monthly organization
- Shopping services
- Refresher services
And for those of you living elsewhere she offers virtual organization. You have no excuse now! 🙂
Back to our linen closet makeover
I told Krista that I was inspired by my friend Lauren over at Saying it Southern Blog’s linen closet, so she had a good idea what look I was after.
How gorgeous is this closet? I love how minimal and organized it is.
Krista sent me a rough mockup of the closet and ran it by me in case I had any changes. She gave me a couple products to choose from for the large floor baskets. I loved seeing this mockup and plan ahead of time, and loved knowing that Krista and I were on the same page.
I originally thought I’d try metallic gold dots on the wall, but later changed my mind to charcoal grey so there’d be plenty of contrast.
Once I got the closet cleared out, I was instructed to put only the items I wanted to keep in the closet back in for Krista’s visit.
The closet sat like this for a few days before Krista and Monica came to work their magic.
Finally the day arrived for the closet makeover, which happened while I was at work.
I followed along on Neatly Done’s Instagram stories to see the progress and got even more excited with each new sneak peek —I couldn’t wait to get home and see it.
You guys…I came home to this beauty!
The white towels were added by me after she left because I bought them on the way home. That’s why they they look a little disheveled, ha!
I quickly realized that the towels weren’t fluffy enough, so I returned them and later bought some more.
Oh, I was definitely in awe and absolutely in love! Krista and her assistant Monica did an amazing job and I was so happy to have this part of our lives organized!
The larger baskets on the floor, which hold our rolled beach towels, extra guest towels, and toilet paper are amazing. Those lovely acrylic medicine lazy susan organizers are also an amazing and easy method to store meds. They even cut and applied custom vinyls to each section. How amazing is that?
They also added the white contact paper around each shelf section, which took them forever, but made a huge difference. Edgar dog supervised.
Krista took some in progress photos
I couldn’t wait to add my touch to the walls behind the shelving. Keep scrolling to see what I did there.
For those of you who might want to do a similar closet makeover, here is the linen closet makeover supply list
(2) Contact Paper (60’ roll)
(1) Gift tag labels (pckg of 5)
(10) Vinyl labels
I wanted to add some peel and stick wallpaper to the walls like this one above from Target, but opted to hand paint the dot pattern myself. More on this semi-regrettable decision below. 🙂
How I hand painted my own linen closet wallpaper
Sigh. I love the imperfect dot look and knew that with some cheap acrylic paint and a paint brush, I could achieve this look on my own and by hand. What I didn’t think about was how long it would take, ha. I had a lot of other deadlines going on at the time and felt a little crazy, but made time each evening after work to get one section done at a time. I completed the walls in 3 evenings. So happy it has a similar feel to the wallpaper I loved!
Finally here’s the reveal of our linen closet makeover
It makes me so happy!
Now here are some closer looks at each section.
Yes, I need to work on my towel folding technique, but at least this is an improvement.
The combination of baskets in different sizes with the acrylics and clear glass jars (which I had on hand from thrifting) makes me smile.
It’s so great looking at each bin and knowing exactly what goes where.
This extra bin at the top is perfect for a odds and ends and few of our random sheets that are not full sets.
Don’t mind me…I’ll just keep looking at the painted dots and am so glad I took the extra time to paint them. They really are a statement maker.
If I change my mind down the road, I can simply paint over them and do something different.
What do you think of the closet makeover?
I’m so very happy that Krista reached out to me and that we did this project together. I highly recommend doing a closet makeover! I promise to keep this closet organized. 🙂
Krista shared some super helpful tips for all the steps she took to transform our closet into a work of art.
1. Take everything out of the space. Toss old, expired and duplicate items. (As part of my service, I take donations to charity for my clients!)
2. Sort items into categories with other like items. Subcategorize as makes sense. For example: all medicine together, then subcategorized by kids, pain, first aid, cold/flu, etc.Edit further, if necessary.She recommends keeping two towels per person in your household. One for using, one for backup and to use when you wash the other one. Also, have a couple of extra towels for guests. She also recommends two sets of sheets per bed, for the same reason.
3. Start reimagining your space. Look at inspiring spaces online. How do you want the space to feel — crisp and clean, warm and cozy, modern, etc.? Decide what colors you do (and don’t) want to incorporate.
4. Measure your space – depth, width and height of each shelf. Sketch out the space and start placing items on paper. Put frequently used items on eye level shelving, lesser used items up higher.
5. Decide which items you want to contain and what type of containment you’ll use (bin, basket, turntable, drawer, canister, etc.).
Tip: buy more containers than you think you’ll need to avoid multiple trips to and from the store.
Krista likes storing sheet sets in a basket because she doesn’t think they stack easily and nicely on shelving. She does like to fold towels on shelving — make sure you put the folded edge facing out— it looks so much neater. Another towel option is to roll and place in a basket.
7. After everything is in containers or folded on the shelf, label. Choose a label that elevates the style of your space and ties all your containers together for a cohesive look.
A little bit more about Krista at Neatly Done
By now it’s obvious that I highly recommend contacting Krista to set up a consultation. It’ll change your life and bring some peace into it, I promise.
xoxo
Audrey
hi! this isn’t a comment for the linen closet makeover (which was great!) but for your 2020 printable calendars! I couldn’t figure out how to comment under that! BUT, the minimal 2 design – monday start (although I didn’t look at the sunday one) has a bit of an alignment issue in May and August and I was wondering if you could fix that! I love the simplicity of the design and used the same one from 2019!!
Hi Megan. Thanks so much for letting me know about the alignment issues on the calendar. I’ve fixed it. 🙂