Decluttering and Organizing Bedding

It’s halfway through October and after a nice week away during fall break, I have been working hard on the bedding challenge for A Year of Details.

As nice as it was to be away, it is always wonderful to come home and sleep in my own bed again. I really love the feeling of being in my comfortable bed, wrapped up in cozy blankets, especially when it’s cold outside. And with my new bedding, it is even more comfy and cozy!

In my last post about bedding, I said I was going to add some color and get myself lovely new sheets. I did both. I ordered new white fitted sheets from Urbanara, which are very sleek and cool to the touch. You may recall that I am a lover of percale.

The new duvet covers and big pillow cases from H&M Home are now adorning the bed and I’m very happy with the look and feel. They are sheer velvet on top and cotton on the bottom.

Big furry and cozy blankets have been added to my bed as well as to the chair in the corner.

Cozy, fall feels are all around and truth be told, I am daydreaming of snuggling up right there all day long with a book in hand as I drift off into a blissful nap……ahhh we can dream.

STORAGE

After prettifying my bed, it was time to roll up my sleeves and deal with my bedding storage situation. A project I had been meaning to do for months.

ASSESS THE SYSTEM

If you are lucky enough to have a lovely linen closet, your challenge for this month may be to declutter and get it organized!

The first thing to do is to stand back and observe if your current system is working? Is it ordered or chaotic? Does it work for you?

In my case, my bedding storage/clutter problem stems from the fact that we don’t have one place to store all the bedding, like a linen closet. To my regret there is simply no space in the hallway, bathroom or any other room to put one.

As a result, we have multiple places to store bedding, including one drawer of a dresser in my bedroom, and in the guest room upstairs. There were also blankets and extra bedding hiding out in a cupboard in the basement which hadn’t been touched since I put them there when we moved in more than 4 years ago.

A giant pile of bedding was just lying in a corner of the guest room along with the air conditioner and other random stuff. I cringed when I walked into this room. The situation was dire and it was truly time to sort this out.

SORT

I started by going through every sheet, every pillow case, etc. in each room, one room at a time. I made three piles: to keep (nice bedding I actually want to use) to donate (nice bedding that I no longer want) and to throw away (too worn out, zipper broken on duvet covers, etc). Nearly everything I found in the basement was given away, nothing was anything we needed or wanted. Note to self: Out of sight means out of mind!

Be sure to set limits when sorting your bedding. How many sets of sheets do you really need?

Once I was down to what I wanted to keep, I divided into what was meant for my own bedroom and what was for the kids and what was for guests.

My kids both have enough space in their wardrobes to store their own bedding so it was easy to get that done and sorted.

ORGANIZE

Coming up with a storage solution for my own bedding was my big challenge.

This picture was my inspiration. I don’t have the space for a big beautiful linen armoire, but I love the look and feeling that comes from these beautifully organized baskets inside the cupboard.

So I thought: If I had these pretty baskets organized by sheets, pillow cases, etc., where could I realistically put them?

I came up with a few ideas, including putting them in the blue antique cupboard up in the guest room, but in the end I decided on an under-utilized cupboard that is part of our wall of IKEA PAX wardrobes in our bedroom. Storing our bedding in the bedroom just seemed more practical than up another set of stairs (3 floors up from the basement laundry room!)

My next big task was to clean out the poorly used cupboard. If you are organizing a linen closet already in use, I highly recommend taking everything out and cleaning down to the last dust bunny.

CATEGORIZE and LABEL

I found similar baskets to the ones in my inspiration photo on Amazon (find them here) and ordered the set of 3 to see if they would work. They ended up being exactly what I needed. I found labels I had already (similar here) and and used my trusted label maker to make them look pretty. Hand-written would have been just as nice.

In my experience, labeling really does make things stay more organized. It gives a neat and streamlined feel and ensures that all family members know where to find things and can put things away on their own. Well, that’s the idea anyway 😉 You can label shelves if you don’t use baskets.

There is now one basket for sheets, one for pillow cases and one for extra duvet covers stored neatly in the cupboard in my bedroom, along with my husband’s clothes. It may not be a traditional linen closet, but it works for us!

I can’t tell you how good it feels to open up this cupboard and see everything so wonderfully organized. You may notice that my sheets and pillow cases are not folded to perfection. This is not a skill I have mastered, but as long as the sheets are neatly folded in their baskets, I’m fine with that. If you want to learn how to fold like a pro, I suggest checking out Marie Kondo’s video on folding fitted sheets.

An added bonus to sorting out my bedding situation is that I have gained a whole new drawer in my dresser for lounge clothes!

The guest room bedding is now stored upstairs in the guest room. Doesn’t that sound logical?! Sheets, pillow cases and duvet covers in an extra drawer and the duvets themselves in the trunk basket. I also store our off-season duvets up here. I tidied up the whole space in the process, which seeing it now makes me feel so good!

Since I don’t have a real linen closet, it really makes sense that everyone’s bedding is stored in their room and the guest bedding in the guest room. I finally have a system that works!

My bedding situation had gotten out of control and getting it all sorted and organized makes me feel so much less stressed. There is such a satisfying feeling that comes from finally doing a project that you have meant to take care for months! Ahhhhhhh.

How is your bedding and bedroom coming along? In the last coupe weeks I am looking around my bedroom to see what other minor alterations I can make to bring more comfort into my room. And less clutter!

Good luck finishing up this challenge! I would love to hear and see what you’ve done! Share your space using the hashtags #yearofdetailsproject so we can all cheer each other on!

See you again in November for the third challenge in A Year of Details. Entertaining will be the next topic we dive into!

xx

Nicole