Being a mostly paper free kitchen feels freeing. Plus, it’s really fun collecting towels and napkins. I’ll buy them anywhere really as long as I love them and their affordable. Retail stores are great, but often I’ve found unique napkins and towels at my local antique store. Keep reading for the steps I took and tips I learned along the way.
- Choose a space to conveniently store your dish & hand towels in a cabinet or drawer closest to your sink. Choose somewhere spacious so you can collect enough that you don’t have to launder them every day. Also, find a space to store napkins. Ours are in a napkin basket in one of our cabinets on top of a stack of dishes. The whole thing can be moved out when needed or put in fancier napkin holder on the kitchen table.
- Find a vessel to keep a few towels in at a time on the counter for quick handy reaching. That way your guests can easily find some as well. I shopped my house when and decided on a vintage yellow ware bowl. One of many I’ve collected over the years thanks to my love for antique & vintage items. Start with items you already have in your home that you love and see if something will work for you. If that doesn’t work scan your local antique or thrift store for something fun.
- Next, you’ll need some laundry basket in the kitchen for your towels. This was learned the hard way. After stacking dirties up on the counter or running to my laundry basket in the closet I needed a solution. What I did was rearrange under my kitchen sink to make room for two baskets. One for dirty towels, and one for my clean house cleaning towels. Be sure to measure the space and pick your basket based on that. A small one for the dirty towels works great because you don’t want them collecting under there long. Plus, one large enough to hold many flour sack towels for house cleaning.
- Then the fun part, go shopping for some fun new towels and napkins! Make sure to stock up on the three essentials.
- hand & dish towels
- napkins
- flour sack towels for cleaning (I prefer gray ones as they show less stains over time than white)
- Even though I really love having a (mostly) paper free kitchen I do keep a roll of paper towels. Mostly for those nasty messes the kids or the dog inevitably makes, but other than that we’re paper free.
I hope this inspires you to work your way towards a mostly paper free kitchen as well.
~ Natalie