Clutter Buster: The Dreaded Hall Closet

     For a long time I was like a lot of people with towels, sheets, and blankets bursting out of my hall closet. We live in a small apartment so we have our bedroom closets, the kitchen pantry, coat closet, and this wonderful 'linen' closet. First let me tell you what I did with all of the things mentioned above to get them out of my hair so I could really utilize this space.
     Each family member has a color coded washcloth and towel and we each get our own hook on the bathroom wall (plus one for a guest-one who is fairly permanent). I wash these once a week or as necessary and they don't take up precious closet real estate. I dwindled down our sheet supply and for a while was keeping it under our mattresses. I still may do this with our king size sheets, but when they are under the kid's beds it puts them at an angle so those will be staying in the closet. All of our blankets are in a chest that was previously being used as a toy box for our son. When the lid became unsafe, we detached the hinges and it is now in our bedroom closet holding our extra blankets.

     I used to make paper scrapbooks - which meant A LOT of  "craft crap" as my husband calls it had nowhere to go. When I went digital and realized how little I could bring it down to I was extremely excited to have a home for it. What I have left is really only some papers and stickers. The stickers are used in my letter writing or as rewards for my son so they are kept in my 'snail mail' bin. The papers are in the lovely Project Life box on top of the cross stitching drawer set or cut into 4x6 pieces and stored in the small bins below.

     A lot of what takes up the lower portion of the closet are current projects and items that did not fit in the shadowboxes I had on hand so are waiting for the display case we are currently searching for. Behind all those burp rags and crib sheets are some wooden salad bowls I will be turning into toadstool photo props for this spring and summer. The bag on the bottom there are some shells my grandmother brought back from her first trip to Florida that I intend on buying a deeper shadowbox for. The suitcase has my baptism blanket, my ceramic baby shoe, and my grandmother's first baby shoes which will all be going in the display case. The current projects bin contains books needing mending, clothes needed alterations, and a couple of projects in the works for friends and family.
     Most people think of containers and baskets and bins when they think of organizing. When I think of organizing, I think of not having stuff we don't need or want to display. I have done a lot of purging over the past couple of weeks and plan to attack some other things stored out in the garage next. My hope is to have everything we love on display or in use.

In the comments: what do you keep in your hall closet? Do you have multiple sheet sets for the beds in your home? Do you regularly purge things in your home?