I agree with both Annz and Patty Cakes' suggestions. I don't have a dedicated linen closet, but instead have built-in linen cabinets in our two main bathrooms. Neither have drawers, just shelves. But, I do have a similar set up to the one you've pictured, on one side of our guest room's walk-in closet that I'm using to store extra sheets, blankets and comforters. In there, my upper doors are double ones, making access to the shelves easy. But the drawers, deep as they are, are not working very well at all for storing my comforters in. I'm going to try Patty's roll & tie idea with them. instead. The drawers do hold sheet sets, neatly folded inside one pillow case fairly well, though. I can set them on end ( like books) in the drawers for easy access. The problem, up until Patty's idea, is that the comforters folded on the shelves are so puffy that my cabinet doors won't stay closed. Anyhoo, just more food for thought. But, how wonderful to be getting ANY type of extra storage, so I'm happy for you! Don't forget to post After pics of us. Lynn

hi mara! Unfortunately, I think laundry in the basement is the only option for this house unless we want to give up one of the second floor bedrooms (which I don't think makes sense and would entail WAY more intrusive construction than we want). I agree that it's not ideal, but it is what it is. I sketched out a couple of ideas for the basement space...would you mind taking a look? Here is the current basement overall. The door on the right by the toilet leads to the new part of the basement under our kitchen addition. That space is already finished and is what I'm calling potential guest room/man cave. It has outside egress through a pair of "Dorothy doors". So the way it is now you come down stairs from the breakfast room into an unfinished basement with a cement floor, low ductwork and rubble stone walls and wind your way past open laundry, furnace, a non-functioning toilet in a tiny wood enclosure to reach the nice finished space. It's a pretty odd setup. The black dots in the sketch are steel support beams. We had an HVAC guy out yesterday who can fix most of the ducting issues. Our thought is to drywall the whole left section of the basement, adding lots of lighting and tile or pergo floors. This will give us a 12' by 24' rec room (we currently have a smallish living room and no family room upstairs, so I think this space will be important to future buyers). The plan is to use the upper right quadrant of the space for the utility functions of the basement: laundry, bathroom, furnace room. Plumbing and gas lines are already there, so I think this makes sense. It also has to serve as the hallway to the new portion of the basement. My husband's beloved workshop would get drywall and a door, but would otherwise be untouched. Here is the idea that I think I like best so far. A stacking washer and dryer and the laundry sink would be behind double pocket doors. The pocket doors would open all the way and stow in the wall by the shower. There would be a cabinet with storage below and space to fold laundry just opposite the laundry. There could be an upper cabinet or open shelves above. Access to the storage closet (which will have pretty low headroom due to ducting) would be from the rec room. Here is the other idea that I'm also considering. The stacked washer/dryer and sink would be behind double doors that swing open on heavy-duty hinges. On the inside of the left door, I could hang my iron and ironing board. On the inside of the right door would be a fold-down table. The right door would open all the way against the wall backing up to the shower and the table (I think it could be about 3' by 2') would unfold into the hallway space. In this plan, the access to the storage closet would be across from the laundry. If I wanted to keep the washer and dryer side-by-side and still have a sink, I'd have to put the sink where the shower is in the sketches above. I think it makes more sense to stack machines, keep to a smaller laundry footprint, and have a full bath with shower. So what do you think? Are either of these pretty decent substitutes for a laundry room? Thanks so much for taking the time to look and to make it through all of my rambling!

OK, let's see if I'm getting this correct. After moving the half bath door, you would have a dead end of a hallway which you would like to utilized for pantry and coat storage. My pantry cabinets are 15" deep. The largest boxes of food I purchase are only 8" deep, so I end up with wasted space in front of the ones I frequently access and sometimes miss things when I put a double layer. If your hallway is traditional, it's 36" wide. I would locate the studs and put in shelves 11-12" deep. Measure what you want to store or have adjustable shelving. I like mine pretty stationary since I put heave stuff there. I would then come out the full 13" and put a pre-hung interior door. You would only have to build a header with some short studs for a bit of drywall. As long as the studs in your hallway work out, a pre-hung door in something like 32" will probably take up the 36" hallway and could be trimmed out to cover any gaps. You could then use both sides of the door for coat storage with attractive hooks. We live far, far and even farther from things I see linked. So for less than the IKEA cabinet and shipping, you could have a nice set-up. Since I can't usually purchase things I would like, I try to list the features I really want. I can usually get a better fit when it' built to fit the spot. I did use two cheap-o fiberboard cabinets for pantry space. I hate to admit it, but they looked just fine. They were white laminate and once we didn't need them, it was really painless to send them packing. You might want to try a $50 screw together cabinet and see it the space works like you hope. If so, it would be worth building something more attractive. If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't have gotten laminate. I would have gotten the brown color stuff and painted it to match my walls. MDF paints well and you can fancy it up with trim molding. Our local big box store has them with one side for hanging clothing and the other side with shelves. You could hang the coats as well as have some pantry storage. They come in a variety of heights. That would be my first choice. Gloria

Wow. Never expected this to be such a popular topic. After reading the Young House Love blog, I WAS motivated to do some reorganizing of my linen closet. I keep towels, bathroom cleaning supplies, a hamper, and cosmetics/health & beauty stuff in ours. Sheets are in another, smaller hall closet. First, I checked the expiration dates on cold medicines, etc., and found a lot of stuff expired. That was easy to pitch. THEN, I looked at old make up, etc. (Much harder to part with, even though I haven't used some of it in ages...) Also pitched half-used bottles of shampoo I tried but didn't like, etc. It felt VERY wasteful. I went to the Christmas Tree Shop and bought 8 square baskets - 2 of 4 different sizes. (They actually nested inside each other.) Nearly $80. (A-Hem? For a BATHROOM CLOSET? Hmmm.) Took them home and was thankful they didn't really work to hold the stuff the way I had hoped. Returned them. Since I used to be a Longaberger Basket consultant, I have an attic full of baskets. I decided that, in the meantime, I would just grab some of those baskets and use them to corral my cosmetics, etc. It works, but isn't as neat as I'd like. I also have two plastic 'drawers' that I use. One small one has 3 little drawers - I use it for eye makeup and lipsticks. The other is bigger (about 8x10x16 deep) that I have cold medicines and anything else I don't know where to put. I guess the mix of plastic and baskets, to me, make the whole effect a little sloppy. While at the Christmas Tree Shop, I noticed photo boxes for $1.99. They stack neatly on top of each other and have a little metal label spot on the side. I may go back for those. Would especially work for stuff like first aid items and other things not used daily. So...if I ever get the closet looking 'photo' ready, I'll post a picture... Parsuzi. PS I also was taught the 'right' way to fold fitted sheets so they fold flat, but mine never look that nice. I don't generally put them on a table to fold, though. That might be the key.