HOW TO ORGANIZE KITCHEN TOWELS AND RAGS

I’ve seen households accumulate quite the collection of kitchen towels and rags. Some have continued to purchase new towels and rags over the years without purging the old. Or, they purchase the bulk bag of rags not realizing they didn’t really need that many. Or, they love to decorate and therefore purchase a new towel every season and holiday while, again, not purging the old. Here is how to know how many kitchen towels and rags you really need and how to organize kitchen towels and rags properly so they are easy to access right where you need them. And, did you know, you can also organize your spaces according to your organizing style? You can find out what your organizing style is here.

Before organizing your kitchen towels and rags, you must purge the ones that are unusable and damaged beyond repair. Be ruthless and purge the excess so you can more easily store what you do need and use.

In my freebie library here, I include guides which help walk you through the organizing process and help you decide what to purge and keep. I also include my declutter and organizing challenge calendars and guides to help direct you through each area of your home. These guides ensure you get through every nook and cranny and finally get to the other side of clutter … an organized and functional space!

In this post, we focus on how to organize kitchen towels and rags. Below, I share ideas on how to organize kitchen towels and rags with different types of organizing solutions that will work for your organizing styles and spaces. (I also share how to organize dining table linens, bath towels, hand towels, fingertip towels, and washcloths, and bedding.)

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How Many Do You Really Need?

I get it. You want to be prepared for messy spills. But, how huge of a spill are you preparing for and how many? The average home does not need to sop up the Caspian Sea. So, let’s be realistic about the quantities of towels and rags we really need. I share how I store my kitchen towels and rags in my kitchen tour here.

Kitchen Towels

Kitchen towels are supposed to only be used to dry off your hands or any excess water on any surfaces. So, since these towels don’t get particularly dirty, you can get away with using one for up to one week depending on how often and how many people are using the towel. So, you will simply have one kitchen towel you are currently using and one you have available to use when it is time to wash the one you are currently using. If you have a large household, you can decide to have a few more towels availabe if you find you need to utilize more than one per week and you wash your towels weekly. (I also shared about how to use a hanging sweater organizer for linens here.)

Storage & Accessibility

Storing your backup towel(s) is much simpler when you don’t have an overflowing abundance. You can simply fold and store them with your oven mitts in a drawer, bin, or basket. For the decorator who likes to change out decorative towels often, you can create a rule for yourself to keep decorative kitchen hand towels from overruning your spaces. Limit how many towels you keep to a drawer or baskets like these below (found here). Then, use the one-in-one-out rule if you decide to purchase a new towel. Get rid of an old towel before bringing in the new.

Since you will likely be mostly using your kitchen towel to dry your hands after washing dishes, I find the best solution to make it accessible where you need it is to use an over the cabinet door towel bar lile this one below (found here) that you can place over your kitchen cabinet door under your sink. Sometimes your oven is close enough so you can utilize the oven door handle to hang your hand towels. In case you don’t have cabinets under your sink, you can utilize a hand towel holder to place on your counter or on your wall next to your sink.

Rags

There is a difference between cleaning cloths and rags. I cover how to properly store cleaning cloths here. Cleaning cloths are much more durable than rags and are meant to actually clean specific surfaces like glass, wood, etc. Rags are meant to sop up messy spills. With the kitchen being the most spill-prone area in your home, making rags super easily accessible is essential. Also, you must have a place to properly store used rags so that they do not become moldy and ruin the rest of your laundry as well.

Storage & Accessibility

I find that open stackable baskets like these below (found here) are the best solution for storing clean rags for easy accessibility on top and used rags on the bottom. The open basket allows the rags to have a chance to dry out properly and not grow mold and mildew. Also, having a designated place for used rags keeps you from tossing them in with your regular laundry where they can spread mold and mildew to your clothing.

I hope you found some ideas for how to organize your kitchen towels and rags for your organizing style and/or the space that you have! In my next post, I share how to organize dining table linens. Don’t forget to grab my free resources from my freebie library here. Let’s get to the other side of clutter … an organized and functional space!

Happy Organizing!