With January white sales, this is a good time of year to toss worn towels and threadbare sheets. As you replace them, it’s a good idea to decide how many sheet and towel sets you should have.
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For our purposes today, I want to share a number to use as a good rule of thumb. The overall goal is to keep from having an overflowing linen closet.
The answer is one for the bed, another for the linen closet, and one more in the laundry. That’s three sheet sets per bed.
I actually only have one set of sheets.
The reason for that is, I know that when one set gets dirty, I’ll leave it sitting in the laundry room indefinitely. So, to avoid unwanted laundry piles, I just wash my sheets every two weeks. Sometimes I wash the pillow cases on that off week.
The point being, the number of sheet sets you own should ultimately be based on your household needs, laundry habits, and lifestyle.
If you prefer to sleep without a top sheet, look for bedding that is sold separately. That way you only buy what you need. Or, like me, you might want to have extra fitted sheets to use as box spring covers.
The same rule of thumb for sheets also applies to towels. So, each person in your household should have three towel sets.
Add another three sets per guest. Of course, this will also depend on how long overnight guests are staying. If guests tend to stay a week or so, three sets per guest is a good number. If they’re only staying a couple of days, you can get away with one to two sets per guest.
Again, depending on how often you change towels, you may want to keep more sets on hand. I like to change hand towels every day, so I keep seven hand towels in the master bathroom. Since our guest bath doesn’t get used very often, I can get away with the three towel guideline.
For bath towels, we use ours a few times before getting a new towel. So three bath towels per person works well for our household.
You may choose to either do laundry more often or have more bath towels on hand based on the number of bath towels you decide to keep.
Now, let’s talk about organizing your sheets and towels. You don’t have to have a linen closet to neatly store your linens.
If you don’t have a linen closet you can store your extra set/s of bed sheets:
If you don’t have a linen closet, there are many ways you can store your towels:
I store my towels on a train rack that hangs on a wall next to the bath tub.
The bottom line is every household is different. You should have as many sheet and towel sets as works for you.
You know you have too many if you don’t have enough room to store them or if you have sets you never use.
If you have any towels or sheets that have holes or stains, you can either donate them or repurpose them.
Some of the ways you can repurpose sheets are as drop cloths for painting projects, as fabric for sewing, to cover plants in a freeze, or even as a tablecloth.
You can cut towels into rags to use for house cleaning or in the garage.
If you’re prefer to donate, find a local animal shelter. They can put old linens to good use.
For more decluttering tips read: