How do you handle laundry? Where do you put the dirty clothes? On the floor or in a hamper? In the bedroom(s) or bathroom(s)? Or straight to laundry room?
In our house, the dirty clothes go in hampers in each bedroom. Then, each persons laundry is done once a week. Yep, I said ONCE per week. But it's not all on the same day. Kids do theirs one day, and mine and hubby's is a different day. Then, separate days for all the other stuff like sheets, towels, and bathroom stuff.
Do I sort the laundry by colors? NOPE! I can hear you all gasping now! But seriously, I don’t sort whites and colors because there is never enough whites to make its own load. I own 1 white shirt, and I almost never wear it! My husband has a bunch because he wears white t-shirts under his button downs to work, but 5 white t shirts, and a couple pairs of socks is not enough for 1 load of laundry. And in this house there is no such thing as half loads. The way I see it, that’s a waste of time. I don't worry about reds bleeding into the whites because it hasn't happened to me in like 15 years. If I do get something new that is red, and I do worry it might bleed I will make sure I don't put whites into that load. But after that first washing I don't worry about it again. Between my husband and I we have 2 loads per week total. So I wash a load of all colors/darks and another load of whites and colors. If the non-sorting bothers you, then just do lighter colors with whites. For me, a load of all whites just isn't going to happen since we don't have enough whites for a whole load.
So once a week, each kid brings down their basket of dirty clothes, and starts their own wash. If they are on a break from school they also switch it over and take it back to their room when it's all finished. But during the school year, I will switch it over and take it back upstairs. This is only because they are normally starting that wash before they go to school and we don’t want wet clothes sitting in the dryer for 8 hours now do we? And yes, I make them start it before they go to school. I do this because I like to minimize household chores on the weekends. I like the keep weekends free for fun stuff.
Then, on a separate day I, or my husband mostly, will do our wash. I try to limit laundry to 2 loads on any given day. Except when it's sheets or towels days. I have a laundry schedule that goes something like this...
Monday: Sheets (3 beds 3 loads, 4 if I wash my bedspread, which is every 2 weeks)
Tuesday: Towels, shower curtains, bathroom rugs (3 separate loads)
Wednesday: Kids laundry (2 kids, 2 loads)
Thursday: Mine and hubby's laundry (1 or 2 loads)
Friday: Repeat of Thursday if I didn't get it all done because of scheduling or something
The next thing I should add is that I don’t fold the clean clothes in the laundry room. The entire load is pulled out of the dryer and dumped in the basket and carried to the respective bedroom to be folded and put away. In my case, I fold and put away right away. I don’t like wrinkled clothes. The kids are a different story. They don’t seem to care about wrinkles. So they usually live out of their basket for a week, or off the floor since at some point, they end up dumping the basket out on the floor to find a certain thing. Then eventually the clean pile and the dirty pile begin to encroach upon each other…that’s when they will eventually put the dirty stuff in the basket and start the whole process over again. This is exactly why they do their own. They clearly have their own methods, if that’s what you want to call it. I like my method and they like theirs. One thing about organization is that you can’t force your ways and methods on other people. Maybe one day my kids will care about putting clothes away. But that day has not come yet, so for now I just deal with their way and just be thankful they do their own laundry, and it stays in their own room.
Some people have Pinterest worthy, and beautiful laundry rooms with space for sorting whites, colors, and darks, and space for folding, and hang drying. And if that’s your thing, that’s great! It’s just not my thing. First of all, my laundry room is also our mudroom, so it’s a) not big enough to be a sorting, folding, and hang drying facility also, and b) I don’t want all our dirty laundry out for everyone to see who walks in the back door. If you saw a previous post about my mudroom, you know that door goes out to our patio so when we have company outside, they are coming in that door to use the bathroom or whatever. We have plans to expand that space a little bit to make the mudroom somewhat separate from laundry room, but until that day comes, this is how my laundry is done.
This is what works for me, and my family. Maybe it will work for you and/or your family too. Maybe it won’t, and that’s ok. The beauty of organization is that is different for every household. Every house is different and has different needs, and every family does things a little different. But maybe some of my tips will work for you or inspire a new more efficient method for your family!
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