How I do Laundry

My sister Emily told me that I kind of changed her life when I shared some of my laundry secrets with her.  So I thought that some of you might be interested to know how I do laundry.

Laundry is my favorite household chore.  The bulk of it doesn't require a lot of effort.  You just have to remember to keep the laundry moving from the washer the to dryer.  My laundry room is right next to my kitchen so it's easy to keep tabs on.

For me, the hardest part of laundry is getting all the clean clothes put away.  I used to stress over it because it seemed like no matter how hard I worked there would still be dirty laundry when I finished putting away all the clean laundry.  Then I realized that, short of walking around naked on laundry day, it is impossible to get all the clothes clean at once.  That made me feel better about laundry.

Over the past two years I've come up with a pretty great system.  It works well for me and for the house that we live in.  Despite little kids, a pregnancy, a newborn, a deployment, and all the little things going in my life I've been able to stay on top of the laundry while we've lived in this house.  I hope that sharing some of these tricks will help you out with your laundry.

Collection:

Laundry doesn't always accumulate where you think it will.  I used to keep laundry baskets on top of the kids' dressers.  But I found that I was always taking clothes from the hall or living room and putting them into the baskets in the bedrooms.  So I decided to put a laundry basket wherever laundry seemed to accumulate.

The first place was the laundry room.  I used to put dirty laundry in a basket on the floor in the laundry room.  That would have been just fine, but my kids liked to empty out the basket and push it around the house.  So I moved the basket on top of a shelf in the laundry room.

I did this in my closet as well.

Ever since we moved here I've change the kids' diapers in the hall.  That's also where I change their clothes.  I always had piles of laundry accumulating on the floor in the hall. After about a year of living with dirty laundry piles I got smart and just put a laundry basket in the cupboard above the diapers.  Now it's super easy to just toss the clothes in there.

 I never get tired of how good the hall looks after the floor has been cleaned up.

Washing/Drying

This is the easy part.  Saturday and Monday are my laundry days.  I'll run loads of laundry all day long.  When the clean clothes come out of the dryer I put them on a card table in the laundry room.  this table can get stacked pretty high.  Especially when I've been washing blankets.

Sorting

I used to call this step folding, but then I realized that there was hardly any folding going on.  So now it's just called sorting. This step has the most work involved.  But I've found ways to simplify it.

1.  I sort all the clothes into categories.  I'll usually have three laundry baskets on the floor.  One will be for the twins' clothes, one will be for Derrick/Veronica clothes (they share a room), one will be for Brandon/Valerie clothes.  Then I'll go through the pile and sort all the clothes into the appropriate laundry baskets.  As I go I'll also fold any towels, wash cloths, and bedding.  I pile those things up, and put them away.

 I like this process because it's easy to put on hold if I need to do something with the kids.

 When I'm done I usually have some overflowing laundry baskets.  I'm always so grateful for all my kids' clothes.  Most of these are hand-me-downs and I can't believe how lucky we are to have such stylish, good quality clothes.  Thank you to all of you who have helped contribute to the size of these piles.

2.  After I'm done sorting I go back through the laundry baskets.  Usually I'll just take mine and Brandon's clothes into our room, and hang the clothes up in our closet.

We also have a dresser that holds our socks, underwear, some of Brandon's Army clothes, and our bedding. (I still can't believe I saved this dresser from a dumpster.)

For the kids' clothes I'll go through their baskets and sort them into four piles for each kid.  One pile is for tops (shirts), one is for bottoms (pants, shorts, skirts), one is for pajamas, and one is for Sunday clothes.

I put the kids' dressers in their closets so they have more floor space in their rooms. I have the kids' dressers set up so that the top drawer is for tops, the middle drawer is for bottoms (pants/shorts/skirts), and the third drawer is for pajamas.  Any lower drawers are for out of season clothes that still fit. When I'm done sorting the clothes all I have to do is put them in the appropriate drawer.  I hang the Sunday clothes up on hangers above the dresser.

 It's so easy to just put the clothes into the right drawer, it takes about 45 seconds.

Sometimes I don't get the kids' clothes sorted out into piles.  When that happens I just take the laundry basket into their room.  I'll sit by the dresser and just put clothes away as I get them out of the laundry basket.  It takes a little extra time, but its since I've already sorted the clothes by room it doesn't really take that long.

 Charlotte and Lydia's dresser is missing it's two top drawers (it's another curb find.)  That's okay though because they wouldn't be able to reach those drawers anyway.  And they have so many shirts that it's kind of nice to not have to worry about stuffing them into a drawer.

This way of putting away clothes has made it really easy for Charlotte and Lydia to dress themselves.  They know they just have to get something from the top drawer and something from the middle drawer. The clothes don't always match or go together, but hey I'm teaching independence here, not fashion.  It also makes it easy for me to pick out clothes for Derrick and Veronica.

Sometimes I like to  just think about random stuff while I'm sorting the clothes.  I like to have the washer running and then I can't hear what it going on in the rest of the house.  It's nice to have a few minutes to get lost in my thoughts.  Other times I'll do all the sorting while I'm watching something on Netflix.  It makes the tedious work go faster.  I'll put my laptop on top of the washer and watch Parks and Recreation while sorting out the clothes.  Sometimes Brandon and I will bring the whole laundry pile into our room and put away clothes while watching Psych.


Olds and Ends

Socks have always kind of driven me crazy.  I think I've finally come to a good place with them though.  I've finally gotten smart and only buy white socks.  That way they are easier to match.  Still we do have some that require exact matches.  I'll match them as I sort the clothes.  Then I put the matches into a pocket in our shoe holder.  It's by the door to the garage so it's easy to grab shoes and socks when we are heading out the door.  I also keep socks in the car.

Any mismatched socks go into a little container on the laundry room shelf.  This is where they wait until their matches show up.  (It's so full because there are a lot of too small socks hanging out in the bottom.)

Another thing that I watch for when I'm sorting the laundry is any clothing that the kids have out grown.  I'll toss those clothes into a box that is on a shelf above Veronica's dresser.  Every so often I go through the too small clothes and box them up or pass them on to someone else.  The closet shelves also have boxes of clothes that the kids will grow into.

Anyway, that's my system for staying on top of the laundry.  I always like it when the laundry room card table is cleared off.  Of course with a family of 6 it doesn't stay clear for very long.  But at least it happens.