I love doing laundry! And I always stay on top of my laundry because I love to do it so much. No piles of clean or dirty clothes in my home!
BAH! Who am I kidding? Does that happen? Ever? Does anyone do that? I’ve never even experienced the feeling of a load a day that gets washed, dried, folded and put away in the same day! Well, maybe once a long long time ago…
I don’t know about you, but I’ve struggled endlessly with a huge and very nasty laundry monster. Come on, admit it! You do it too! We all have at one time or another, and for me it’s been so frequent that at one point I considered buying a bigger house so the beast would have a room of his own.
Despite the best of intentions, life often gets in the way and our responsibilities can be overwhelming. It is only the most energetic and organized among us who never has the occasional pile of laundry lying around. It’s bad enough when it’s a pile of dirty laundry, but my troubles have always been with clean clothes.
We know how it’s suppose to be done, and beat ourselves up regularly when we don’t live up to that ideal. But with a busy schedule and 5 million things to do, it used to be common for me to bring the freshly washed and dried basket into my room to be put away later. Most of the time I didn’t have time to follow through, and it would sit there. Committed to washing a load every day to keep the dirty pile under control, I’d wash another load and the same thing happened. And another, until the pile was larger than me and tackling it felt like I was about to climb Mount Everest. Without the view! Sometimes I would fold the clothes as they came out of the dryer, but leave them in a neat pile in the basket to be put away later. Guess what? More often than not, those neatly folded clothes became non-wearable wrinkled mess again from me pawing through it to find something to wear.
I’ve even tried piling the clothes on the bed, thinking that would FORCE me to put them away before bed. Unfortunately I would often get busy and/or distracted, then find myself ready to collapse in my bed…but DAMN! There is a mountain of clothes in the way! So, I would move them to a chair, a bench or any other surface I deemed appropriate at the time. I finally decided I wouldn’t do that anymore. That pile of laundry looming made me feel so bad about myself, like I was failing as an adult.
Believe it or not, after years of struggling with this I finally come up with a solution that works for us. That’s the key, you must have realistic expectations and find a solution that really works seamlessly in your home.
This is what works in my house:
Hang everything I hang all t-shirts, tops, pants and carpis. If it can be hung on a hanger, it is. The only things I fold and put away are shorts and pajamas and sheets and towels. I have a small portable “closet” hanging bar in the laundry room so clothes get hung directly from the dryer. Usually that’s where they live until I wear them again. I’m ok with that.
Basket/hampers for everyone. We each have one in our room. Dirty clothes go in and clean clothes come out. It really isn’t that simple, and yet it its!
Delegate: the kids do their own laundry! That’s right, slave labor, baby! I started having them help me put laundry away years ago when they were really small. When they got bigger, I would hang and fold and they would put them away. By the time they were 8 and 11, they were hanging, folding and putting their own clothes away and within a year my older daughter was doing the laundry as her “chore.” Skylar, who is 10 now, knows HOW to do it but she’s much smaller and has difficulty reaching all the way to the bottom of the washer. She’ll do it if asked, or if there’s a specific thing she wants to wear that’s dirty, but she asks her sister for help. They don’t always do a perfect job, but I am very proud of the job they do. I like an organized closet, with clothes hanging grouped by type but Skylar doesn’t really like to be that tedious. She prefers to just hang everything together. I may come in and move some things around to help her find them later, but having them clean and in the closet is better than in any pile! I get a weird sense of satisfaction to look in their closets and see neatly hanging, organized clothes. I feel like I’m teaching them something I missed as a child that will make their life less cluttered and stressful when they are on their own someday.
Pick a day to wash I usually only do laundry once a week, on Sunday. I treat it as something we must do to prepare for the week ahead and make a big production out of it. However, there are times when we go through more laundry than others and I’ll throw a load in throughout the week. Or better yet, I’ll text my kid and ask her too!
NEVER EVER TAKE CLEAN CLOTHES OUT OF THE LAUNDRY ROOM I’m absolutely serious, this is key and like the ONE hard and fast rule in my house. The clean clothes do not come out of that room unless they are being put away or worn. I’ve had people say “I can’t do that, you must have a huge laundry room!” but no, I don’t. There is barely enough room to walk, but if I wanted to walk I’d go to the park! I’ve learned that the clothes may pile up in there, but it’s far better to have three smaller separated mountains in that room (we all avoid it like the plaque anyway) than to have one giant one taking over my bed, bedroom or sofa. I have the girls put their clothes away on Sunday nights usually, but if not their baskets sit neatly in that room until they do.
This system works really well for us now, but it took years to figure it out and get to this point. I hope you find some of these ideas useful for your own home! Good luck and happy washing!
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