Photos by Joe Lingeman
How and where do you store your kitchen towels? In a drawer, in a hutch, a cabinet, or some other creative way? No matter where you keep your kitchen linens, they aren’t going to be all that helpful if you’re organizing them—or, technically, not organizing them—in a disheveled stack. After all, the whole point is to be able to grab a new one when you need it.
To solve this evergreen kitchen-towel problem, we looked to none other than Marie Kondo, the tidying queen herself. Kondo is known for her unique (and sometimes hotly debated) towel storage method, but we think her method is really the only method you need to know.
How to Fold and Store Kitchen Towels Like Marie Kondo
Kondo’s method definitely looks much tidier than most, but the reason we love it is that it’s super-practical. To start, she encourages people to fold their towels in half twice, then in thirds. If they don’t stand up on their own, they’re not folded right.
The real key to Kondo’s towel-storage method is standing the towels up in a drawer, basket, or organizer, side by side. Do this, and you can see each towel at a glance. And they’re less likely to end up in an annoying leaning-tower-of-linens situation.
Here’s a step-by-step for how to fold and store your kitchen towels like Marie Kondo.
- Fold the towel the long way, so it looks like a long rectangle.
- Next, fold it the short way (so that the rectangle is half as long now).
- Then, fold the towel into thirds.
- Conduct the stand test to make sure the towel can confidently stand on its own.
- Fold all the remaining towels the same way.
- Stand all your neatly folded towels up in a basket or in a drawer.
- Be pleasantly surprised every time you go to grab one.
- Repeat.