Organize linens during white sales

By LAMARA WILLIAMS

Scripps Howard

SHIPSHAPE SHELves: It’s that time of year — time to get organized. A good place to start is with the linen closet. In this one, items are sorted and labeled.

It’s time to change the bed linens and you can find only the pillowcases or the flat sheet or the fitted sheet but not the whole set. Sound familiar?

On a recent linen-changing day, I spent more than 15 minutes trying to find the complete set. Vowing never to let that happen again, I went about editing and organizing my bed linens.

Yes, editing, as in giving some of those old linens to Goodwill, as in letting go of those sheets from your college apartment or your divvy from the divorce years ago.

Ideally, you need only two sets per bed; you might buy a third set in flannel for those chilly winter nights. Think one set on the bed and the other in the wash, and because you’re going to own only two sets, this is where I think you should splurge and buy the good stuff. January and February white sales are just around the corner.

Now to the organizing. If you have a linen closet, you can sort by set and label the shelves by room. Buy inexpensive book labels for the shelves; this will ensure you return everything to the same place.

If you want to get fancy, you can add acrylic shelf dividers (amazon.com) to keep the sheets neatly stacked. Place less frequently used guest bedroom sheets in the back of the closet or on a top shelf.

If you don’t have a linen closet, try storing the linens in the bedroom, where they will be used. Keep the set together by storing it in one of the pillowcases of the set or place the pillowcases between the flat and fitted sheets so, with one easy scoop, you have the whole set.

Is folding that fitted sheet giving you the blues? Wouldn’t you know, Martha Stewart has step-by-step instructions for folding the perfect fitted sheet at www.marthastewart.com. In the search field type in fold-a-fitted-sheet.

So here’s to paring down those linens, treating yourself to fabulous bedding and finding the full set on the first try.