If you don't have an airing cupboard, where do you keep your towels?

[Croissantsandpistachio]

Tiny bathroom, with a heated towel rail. Could possibly put some high level shelving but very limited in capacity.

We've got a reasonably sized terraced house but no airing cupboard. DH, who is usually much tidier and more orderly than me , seems to be happy with them just all being draped everywhere. We never know which are clean or dirty. There is space under the stairs (but obviously this is far from upstairs) or we could possibly do some sort of storage on the landing where the laundry baskets go.

We're actually moving back into the house after some time overseas in a house with 3 bathrooms and loads of storage, so I'm trying to think ahead on how we organise ourselves.

In the cupboard that use to hold the hot water cylinder which is next to the bathroom.

The previous owners use to put their linen there as well.

Other people I know have similar cupboards in their halls though they may not be near the bathroom, put storage in their hall or use drawers/wardrobe shelves in bedrooms.

(My DD bedding is actually on a shelf at the top of her wardrobe as she can't reach it so the space wouldn't be used.)

In the houses I’ve lived it without an airing cupboard I’ve kept the spare ones in a box in my room, in my wardrobe and in a drawer of my chest of drawers, depending on the space available in each particular house. Ones in use have been hung either in bathroom or bedrooms, again depending on space available

Different perspective: we don't have spare towels. Only 1 towel each (me and DH). We wash the towels once a week and they dry on the same day. Same for bed sheets. Have been doing this for decades. This is not for lack of money/space, we have 2 bathrooms - but I honestly don't see the point of spare towels/bed sheets.

In a dresser in the living room.

To clarify, in our house each bathroom gets a hand towel hung in it and then each person has their own bath towel to use for the week which is hung up between uses. Then we have a spare each and a few for guests/ unexpected extra towel needs which are stored elsewhere

I have an airing cupboard but dd doesn't and she has hooks on the back of doors where she hangs them. Not ideal but not much choice.

Do you have space for under bed drawers?

We have this problem. We've got a large set of deep drawers in my son's room so keep them in there

Our small bathroom has 2 rails (not heated) and I’ve put some over-door hooks up (12 hooks on one rail thing, holds loads! From Amazon). So you could have some kind of clean/in-use system in the bathroom like that. You say you don’t know which are clean or dirty, but just put dirty ones in the wash?

I bought an ottoman bed for all towels and bedding. It’s not my favourite style of bed but without storage in the bathroom or hall, it was the best option.

We do have room for under bed boxes so that's a good a shout. We don't have loads but I don't think can get away with only one each per week due to the amount of sports. Maybe we'll replace them with hammam towels so they take up less space.

In a hideous big plastic box on top of the washing machine.

@Croissantsandpistachio

in your case I think I'd put a storage unit in the hallway & relocate the laundry baskets.

I couldn't cope with just one set of towels!

the hangman towels are definitely easier to store!

Sheets and towels are all I the drawers under our divan bed.
We only have 2 sets of sheets per bed. Probably works out to 3 towels each, as we have some old ones for e.g. swimming, or when DS goes away with cadets, and they come back filthy. Personally, we cant guarantee towels will dry in one day, especially over winter, so wouldn't want to be down to one set.

In a drawer in DS’s room.
No tumble dryer so can’t guarantee dry in a day.
Had a towel cull which helped - 2 each.
Plus small swimming towel each for the kids which lives in their swimming bag on back of bedroom doors.
Plus a set of thin beach towels which don’t take up much space.

We have a shelf in the bathroom where we keep our "good" towels, the ones we use every day.
When wet they hang over the heated towel rail.
Our "not good" towels which we use for camping, the dog, the ones that are eventually going to be ripped up for rags & holiday towels are in the bottom of a wardrobe.
Ps I don't have guest towels 😁

I make sure they're bone dry then store them and bedding for the first floor bedrooms in a big antique chest at the foot of our bed. Another one for bedding for the second floor bedrooms on that landing.

We have a decorated storage unit in the bathroom,in front of radiator. Towels go in there. We also have a high level shelf along one wall which holds other bathroom stuff.

Everyone has a laundry basket in their bedroom -an old wicker hamper. When the DC were little, we only had one in our room, but as they got older they do their own laundry.

We got rid of most of our traditional towels and now use microfibre ones, which take up less space and dry much more quickly.

In our first house, the airing cupboard used to be in the children’s bedroom, which they needed for storage as they shared and our house was titchy. Also, as they became older, it became impossible to keep going into their room for things and disturbing them. (I don’t know about anyone else, but the majority of my housework takes place after the kids are in bed, as I work)

I bought a wicker basket, with a lid. Chest style. Google “wicker chest”

It was ideal, because it still encouraged circulation, unlike the plastic boxes I’d been using before, mitigating the dusty old smell that some of my bedding would take on, when it was used very occasionally.

In there, we stored spare towels and spare bedding. Only a little of each (always kept it paired back). It was roomy and it looked nice too.

These days, we live in a much bigger house. (Lots of flipping and upsizing) and I have more than one airing cupboard.

But, I still have my wicker chest! The lid fell off it years ago, and now I use it to store logs by the fire. It’s been a workhorse!

10/10 would recommend the wicker basket chest thing.

Folded up on top of some drawers in the spare room. We have a cupboard but the storage shelf it’s way too high for me to reach so it’s used to keep junk 😩

NB the main bathroom has hooks with initials on the door so everyone's current towel is on that and no mix-ups that way.

So you keep your towels in the airing cupboard then

I have something like this that lives at the top of the stairs. Occasionally re-stain it/paint it to keep it in style with the space. All bedding and towels are in there.

We have all clean bedding in the drawers under the beds. Clean towels are in a big wall cupboard above the toilet in the en suite. It's really a kitchen cupboard but we bought it in a gloss white and use it for towels.

In a chest of drawers in the hallway.

We have just enough wall space next to the box-bedroom door for a tall thinnish bookcase.

This has three shelves and two drawers so I've made the top couple look nice with books and plants, the third shelf is folded towels and the drawers are anything else chucked in and hidden away :)