As I washed countless loads of laundry today, I wondered if there was a way, a better system to come up with to wash the clothes. I have never minded doing laundry, but I have gotten way behind and it had been too long since I did it. I was on probably my 10th load of laundry, just this week, while wondering this. We had the flu early in Dec. and I shoved all other laundry aside to make way for washing every sheet, blanket and pillowcase in the house. I have not caught up since.
How bad is that?
I cleaned up my laundry room today, while doing the laundry. I filled a large black garbage bag with trash. In all honesty, I must say that there was several cardboard boxes that took up alot of space, but still. That is alot of trash!
I also made a couple of small giveaway piles. I feel like there is mountains of stuff though, but I am going to keep at it until I am completely and utterly organized. Right? That will happen someday? Please someone tell me it will????
So, if anyone is reading this….what are your methods for keeping up on laundry? Do you wash every day? Twice a week? Do you separate colors and types of clothing, towels and all? I always want to wait at least a week so I can do a load of towels, a load of darks, lights, whites etc.
Do you separate clothing as they put in the laundry bin or before you wash?
We sort our laundry — whites, darks, and bright colors. We also do laundry almost everyday. However, we’ve gotten behind so many times and that’s so so so hard to catch up.
Congrats on working through it, my friend!
I also sort our laundry. I keep a basket for each load.
Whites, jeans, dark colors, light colors, gentle and towels. I do ask the girls to take down and sort their own laundry. If we keep them all separate, then they can help with the loads too. We wash, dry, fold and putaway daily. Everyone in the family works on this task. I get it going in the morning, and the girls keep it going throughout the day.
My laundry room in this house is sooooo small. We are getting ready for a move. The laundry in the new house is a dream!
momtogirls5
I have done two things to help tame the laundry.
1. I stopped sorting. I know, the unpardonable sin. =D But I did. Here is how I justified myself. David was a bachelor for years. He never sorted anything. Anything dirty went in the washer. And he made it. So did his clothes. It took me years to listen to him on this, but finally, after being buried all the time so that I could “do it right” I gave in, on a trial basis. I never looked back.
We have one bin for clothes. All the clothes go in it, almost. I do have a bin for dedicates. This is for anything that really doesn’t need to be washed with all the other stuff.
To date, the only casualty has been that my whites don’t really get the attention they need. I do every so often gather up the whites and give them the treatment. =)
I also have one bin for towels and one for blankets/sheets. I do wash those categories separately.
2. I have also abandoned the normal way of putting clothes away. Again, it was done on a trial basis to see how we liked it. We love it!
We have a family closet. I took the area around my washer and dryer and installed hanging rods and shelving. All the laundry except towels and blankets are put away right beside the washer and dryer. I know of one family that commandeered a bedroom for this purpose. This has drastically reduced the labor involved with the laundry.
I do get behind sometimes on washing and folding, but it is sooo much faster now to get caught up. A day or at the most, 2 is all I need, provided we are not in the middle of a major throwing up crisis. =)