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What happens when you find a kitchen towel in your bathroom linen closet and an Advil bottle tucked away under your sofa cushion? You realize that you are overdue on your linen closet organization project. Well, at least that’s what I felt.

In any case, our bathroom linen closet was a hot mess and was desperately calling out for help. When we moved in, I had thrown in a few boxes mindlessly and called it organized enough. There was no rhyme or reason to anything in there. 

This past weekend, I decided to revamp our bathroom linen closet. Any project like that warrants a large number of hours spent browsing on Pinterest, right?. Like any good mama looking to organize, I did just that and found a ton of inspiration. If you like to see what I found, take a look at my post on 15 Best Linen Closet Organization Ideas.

THE BEFORE

Here is what our line closet looked like before I decided to organize it.

Nasty, isn’t it? I couldn’t wait to get it organized and beautified.

SHOPPING FOR THE LINEN CLOSET ORGANIZATION PROJECT

From all my hours spent looking for ideas, here is the list of what I wanted in our bathroom  linen closet:

1. Wallpaper at the back of the closet
2. New towels
3. Baskets 
4. Bins 

Let me walk you through what I ended up buying for each of the above categories:

WALLPAPER

After browsing for a few more hours, I settled on this gorgeous wallpaper from Amazon. It ticked all the boxes. 

• Had the colors that I wanted, 
• It was removable
• Peel and stick
• The best part – One roll would be sufficient 

A word of caution when using wallpaper. It’s always a good idea to order a little extra because at times the pattern won’t match when you are starting a new column and you’ll end up frustrated. 

Can I let you in on a secret though? We have a 10 ft ceiling in our home, and the roll I bought fell a bit short. I knew that when I was ordering, but I did not want to order an entire extra roll just to cover a tiny bit of extra area. 

The solution: I ended up not wallpapering at the very top. You really can’t see it unless you stick your head inside the bathroom closet and look up at the ceiling. Works for me!

I know, I know, that I cautioned you against buying less, but I also wanted you to know where you can get away with ordering a bit less 🙂

NEW TOWELS

I wanted to pick out fresh, clean and crisp towels, not just because I wanted that gorgeous organized look, but mainly because all our towels were getting old, frayed, and are not soft anymore.

A quick Target run and I found exactly what I wanted. I picked up a few white towels and a couple of aqua or seafoam green ones. Together, they look so cute and blend well with the colors that I had going on in the wallpaper and our master bathroom, in general.

I also ended up buying a few white hand towels to add to what we already had.

BASKETS

When I was looking at all the inspiration images, I realized I was getting drawn to the linen cabinets that had baskets in them. Needless to say, I wanted baskets to be a part of my bathroom closet organization too.

While I was ordering the wallpaper, I found this pretty set of 3 baskets on Amazon and ordered them. What I like about them is that they have lids and handles, making it easy to use.

I thought I was done, but that rarely happens right. When I was browsing the aisles for towels, I found a few great baskets in Target too. I was torn between what I had ordered and the ones beckoning me from the Target shelves. It all came down to price in the end and resisting my temptation to buy a few, I bought just one of them. I’m so proud of myself 🙂

BINS

Last, but not least on my list were bins. For this one though, I had no doubts in my mind about what I wanted. Headed straight to Ikea and bought the Kuggis bins. 

I was tempted to buy the seafoam green colored ones, but I settled for white mainly because, if I ever wanted to switch things up and use the bins elsewhere in the house, I wouldn’t have to worry about the color not matching. 

These bins have lids too, and I really like that feature because you can stack them up too!

WALLPAPERING THE BACK OF THE LINEN CLOSET

Once I had everything I need, it was time to actually get our bathroom linen closet organized. 

I started by removing everything from the closet including the shelves. I had planned to remove the screws holding the shelves so that I could paste the wallpaper easily. But, when I tried removing the screws, they wouldn’t budge. If I had applied pressure, it could’ve damaged the wall. So, I decided to leave them as-is and wallpaper around them.

I took some measurements of the wall and the wallpaper and once I had determined the height at which I need to start, it was just peeling and sticking the wallpaper. Easy peasy!

When I reached the screws, I carefully cut a hole in the wallpaper with an Exacto knife, small enough to expose the screws. I didn’t have to be exact here, because the shelves and everything on them would cover it. 

After the first panel was done, I had to do a little bit of trial and error to match the pattern for the next panel. I ended up starting at a lower height than the first panel. I then patched the gap at the top with the leftover wallpaper. Again, just letting you know that sometimes things aren’t perfect, but we need to make the best of what we have 🙂

I was skeptical about the wallpaper, but look how beautiful it turned out! 

Here is another picture.

DECLUTTERING THE LINEN CLOSET

After I spent a few minutes admiring my handiwork with the wallpaper, I had to focus on the dreaded aspect of any organization project. The decluttering!

Everything that I had removed from the linen closet was strewn across the bathroom floor. I carefully set out to examine everything, purging things that were worn and useless, expired medications, unwanted knick-knacks that had secretly crept into the linen closet (I am sure I had put them there at some point, but I can’t openly admit to that :))

I moved things that could be donated to a separate pile and sorted everything I wanted to keep into sections that would go into the bins and baskets. Here is what went into:

THE BINS

1. Medicines
2. First aid
3. Appliances like dryers and curlers
4. A box for me to store extra stock items like lotions and razors
5. A box for the hubby to store his stuff
6. Miscellaneous items like extra toothbrushes, combs and toothpaste
7. Travel accessories

THE BASKETS

1. Handtowels
2. Washcloths
3. Makeup remover pouches
4. Extra handsoap and lotion bottles
5. Room fresheners

Once everything was put into the baskets and bins, I pulled out my handy dandy label maker and labeled everything 🙂 I love it when things are neatly labeled. It’s one of my favorite parts of any organization project.

At some point, I want to create beautiful Cricut labels, but for now, this will do.

Now, all that was left to do was put them in the linen closet to complete our bathroom closet organization.

ORGANIZING THE LINEN CLOSET

I started by arranging the towels in the middle where they would be easily accessible. 

The shelf above the towels housed the bins that we don’t use on a day to day basis.

I arranged the hubby’s and my bins with a basket of washcloths between them, on the shelf below the towels

The bottom shelf has the medicine and first-aid bins and the basket with hand towels.

I kept the remaining baskets on the floor at the bottom of the closet.

Once I was done, I realized we had an empty shelf leftover at the very top 🙂 I brought out the extra comforters that we had lying in the master closet and arranged them on the top shelf.

THE AFTER

Here’s the completed look. I love how it turned out 🙂 Let me know what you think.

Just to recap, below is a list of everything that I bought or used in this project:

1. Wallpaper
2. Squeegee
3. Exacto knife
4. Bins
5. Baskets with lids
6. Open basket
7. Towels
8. Hand towels
9. Label maker

If you are looking for inspiration for your own linen closet organization, check out my post on 15 best linen closet organization ideas as well. You can find more ideas there.