Store and Organize Bathroom Towels

♦It's time to organize your bathroom towels. First, inspect your hand towels, bath towels and beach towels. Use scissors to remove all hanging threads. Which towels have multiple tears or holes? Those are rags. Stuff them into a single bin with a lid or a wide cylindrical planter and put it in the garage or laundry room. Attach a big label to the bin front that says "rags". Use these rags to clean spills, wash the car, and dry the dog after a bath.

♦Of the remaining bath and hand towels, do you have any matches? Set aside two to four matching sets for guests. Put these towel sets in a pretty basket, cylindrical planter or other decorative container. You can fold and stack the towels in sets on top of each other or you can individually roll each towel and put each vertically in the container. Add some mini bath toiletries, wrapped soaps and a portable travel-size blow dryer. Put this container in a corner of your guest bathroom or bedroom. Tell your family "hands off" these towels--otherwise you won't have any nice ones for guests.

♦Or another option is to put your guest towels and accessories on free-standing racks in your guest bathroom such as an etagere (you can find some nice ones at

♦But if you have floor space, consider using a Graduated-shelf Étagère or Bathroom Shelf Towers in your bathroom. If it's a graduated shelf design, put your decorative soaps and guest shampoos on the small shelf; put folded wash cloths on the next smallest size shelf; put folded hand towels on the medium shelf; and put folded bath towels on the widest shelf at the bottom.

♦Fold the remaining towels and put them in stacks on closet shelves between adjustable shelf dividers. A set of four 12 inch by 12 inch White Shelf Dividers S/4at Lillian Vernon costs about $10.00. You can use these dividers in your hall linen closet too--just put two side-by-side to fit the space and keep stacks of towels from tipping onto each other---especially useful when a family member decides to pull a favorite towel from the middle of the stack instead of the top towel.