How To Ranger Roll Your Towels For Better Organization And Storage

You fold your towels neatly after the laundry, then stack them in the linen closet. Someone reaches in and grabs a towel, and the one below it partially unfolds or tries to come out of the closet too, but they push it back, leaving a messy pile. Each time someone grabs a towel, the piles grow messier, and your folding job feels fruitless. If only there were some way you could fold your towels so they stayed in place better. Luckily, there is, and it's called ranger rolling. It gets its name from the Army folks who roll their clothing and linens this way, which gives them more room in their packs and keeps their garments from getting wrinkled. By rolling your towels this way, you can fit more in your linen closet, display them neatly in the bathroom, and avoid having them get disheveled every time you grab one from a stack to use — and it's easy to do. This is an excellent way to start decluttering your linen closet and finally getting organized.

You will need a space to work in where you can lay out your towels lengthwise — you'll want them lying the long way in front of you, because that is how you will roll them. Once your towel is laid out flat, you will fold the bottom under. You'll want to fold about 7 inches under, as this fold is the most important for keeping your towel perfectly rolled when you put it away.

With your towel in position, and the fold under at the bottom, you now want to trifold it across — you can do a snug tri-fold for a smaller roll, folding it in even thirds, or you can fold one long side to the middle and the other to meet it (overlapping a small amount for strudiness of the roll), which will give you a wider, thinner roll. Starting at the opposite end of your 7-inch fold, roll your towel tightly. Once you get to the end, you will take the folded part and pull it over the rest of the rolled towel, snugging it all in like a kid in a sleeping bag.

Now that you have our perfect ranger-rolled towel, you can roll the rest and store them wherever you'd like. While you can stack them in the linen closet like this, they'll also look great in baskets in your bathroom. In fact, this folding method offers many alternative ways to store bathroom towels without a linen closet. You can roll washcloths, hand towels, and bath towels this way. Even your kitchen towels can benefit from this folding technique. This is a great way to style your kitchen towels instead of just hanging them. Keeping a basket of ranger-rolled kitchen towels right at hand saves you from searching for one when needed and keeps drawer space free for other kitchen items.