Thursday, October 8, 2015

Day 8: Towels and More

Only 8 Days in on the 31 Days to Decluttering and Organizing!

It's towel day!

I recently replaced some of our 10+ year old bath towels, but I kept more than I really needed even with guests. We don't wash our bath towels everyday and when we do they are laundered quickly enough to be used the next day. So really we don't need extra sets of towels, except for guests. But a couple more does make me feel better. And one stack in the closet doesn't take up too much space. I tend to have the most of wash clothes and the fewest of hand towels.

Your preference and ability to do regular laundry will impact how many towel sets you might need to store in your home. Go through your bath towels and get rid of anything ripped or stained. After that determine how many extras you have. Why do you have them? Do you have old ones you use for cleaning or other tasks other than bathing? Maybe those belong elsewhere than combined with your showering towels. Could you do with fewer extras? Do you have too many to fit in the space you are allowing or have?

It would be a good idea to look at your kitchen linens today if you have time today, too. Again, I'm thinking of the holidays. Do you have enough towels and wash clothes? Too many? Doesn't hurt to check place mats, cloth napkins, and table cloths.



I don't use table clothes and I have one set of place mats that I use to accommodate a crowd of nine at our dining room table. I have the same number of cloth napkins also. I'm set there, unless I get tired of my current set. If I were to get a new set, I'd like to think I would let the current set go since there are some things I don't like about them.

Looking at our dish towels. We have plenty. They don't all match each other but we have enough for everyday and plenty for when we are having company. And we have an ample number of dish clothes too. Ours stay stacked neatly most of the time and fit in the space we store them. I figure this is a good way to judge if we have too many. For example, if your towels are in a drawer, but it never closes, you might have too many! Or your drawer is too small. :)

Consider getting rid of the dish towels and wash clothes you don't like, never use, ripped, torn, or are overly stained. If you are unsure, set aside in another spot in your kitchen for awhile and see how your kitchen functions with fewer linens.

How high do you stack your towels? Did you find any towels to let go of? Which type of towel do you have the most of?

5 comments:

  1. The towels we have the most of are orange - because the Mister let me pick the color, and so the choice was obvious xD We have probably one or two too many towels. The amount that we do have means that when it is time to wash a load, all but one or two fit in the washing machine - so, in the very likely chance that they do not get out of the dryer before someone wants to take a shower that evening, they are not left towel-less in the bathroom. I think to help solve this, though, I just need to add one or two into the second bathroom - the Mister wants to use it for showering, but he doesn't because I don't keep any of the stuff in there and he is (quite frankly) too lazy to bring a towel and shampoo in there, ha!

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    1. I love that orange is your obvious choice, Jessica! I'm sure your husband would love it if you set up that bathroom with the things he needs.

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  2. Bath towels were a sensitive topic here when DSs were teenagers. They thought their towels should be used on exiting the shower using a fresh towel each time [teen boys shower in the AM and after sports or PT jobs] while DH & I were raised hang up our large bath towels after shower and use the same towel up to 5 days unless there was a reason to switch.

    We also use color coded hand towels, poof scrubbie, loofah and face cloths and all do double duty as decor in the various bathrooms. Towels are rolled and stacked in sets on one shelf except hand towels which are bought as a dozen, split in the various bthrms, visible on a shelf and mostly changed out daily.

    Kitchen towels are rolled and stacked in a reed basket atop the fridge. They're bright colors and changed out daily. I think there are about 12 as they are too often mostly in the wash. I use kitchen, hard net, crocheted scrubbies or 3M sided sponges which are washed in the DW. They come in pkg of 12.

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  3. Like bed linens, I really like to decorate the kitchen table with a fabric tablecloth, pastels in summer, jewel tones in fall and winter. I overlay with place mats for specific place settings and centre point for hot serving platters. Also have several holiday and ethnic themed small cloth 'overlays' that were mostly gifts or souvenirs which hold the very best of memories that we en. joy talking about. {I dislike tacky souvenirs and rather have something easy to pack that offers long term pleasure}

    Likely have too many placemat sets but I rotate through them all and have a shelf dedicated to their storage. They give a fresh look to the table since it's the same tableware for more than 25 yrs.

    Dining Rm table has a table-scape that is changed out each month. It's necessary because if left blank it can easily be a 'drop zone.'

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