Storing sheets and towels is a problem for everyone! If you have a big home, you’ll have lots of beds and lots of linen and towels. If you have a small home you may not have obvious places to store them. When decluttering, I’m often asked how many should people have. Well, the answer is different for everyone. I recommend 3 sets for each bed that is regularly used. That’s one in use, one in the wash, and one spare in case something unexpected happens. If a bed isn’t regularly used, then two should be enough.
Most houses have different sizes of beds and there’s usually one person only in the household who knows by glance which sheets fit which beds! If your sheets have a label and they don’t say the sizes, we recommend writing on the label in a Sharpie what size bed they are for. For duvet covers, you normally can tell by looking as you know which bed you see them on.
If you can, store the sheets and towels in the room in which they are used. Use a shelf in a wardrobe, a draw under a bed, or get a storage bag to put them in. This way they are easy to find when you need them. When you’ve washed the full set, take one of the pillow cases and store the other pillow case/s, sheet and duvet cover inside. This makes it easy to grab what you need when you need it.
For towels, if you have a bathroom cupboard, keep them in there, or keep them in the wardrobe that is in the room in which people using them will sleep. If you have towels that are generic (eg, for toilets, or hand towels in shared bathrooms), then just choose the best place to keep them, either all together in one room with a big cupboard, or near to where they’ll be used.
Those of you who have linen or airing cupboards and store everything together, we still recommend writing on the labels of sheets, but also labelling the rooms where they will be used, to make it easier for other people to find what they need. As you get older you may have help, and if you make your storage more obvious, it’s easier for people to find what is needed when they come in to help you!
Some charities won’t take bed linen if you need to get rid of any, but do check with your local shop. Often vets will take towels, and you can give both towels and bed linen away on Olio, or some shelters may take them.