Help! My Laundry Pile Overfloweth!
Does anyone have any great ideas for me? I can keep my house pretty clean and organized and clutter-free, but Mount Neverest (i.e. the laundry pile) always seems to be piled up high. I don't have any trouble running the laundry through, but folding it seems to be my point of contention. We always seem to have at least one mountain of laundry in our bedroom-- at least it's clean, but I can't seem to keep it folded and put away. I work on it everyday, but my system just doesn't seem good enough. And 12 children from now, we are going to have a major problem on our hands!!
How do you stay on top of the laundry? Any tips or help would be much-appreciated!
How do you stay on top of the laundry? Any tips or help would be much-appreciated!
posted by Crystal Paine at 2:16 PM
27 Comments:
With 9 people in a family, I know what you mean! =) What we do, is go from start to finish - wash, dry, fold. This way there isn't any mountains of unfolded laundry sitting around getting wrinkled.
well if you have twelve kids make them fold:) j/k. Honestly, that was the kids responsibility in the house. Fold and deliver laundry.
I hear you Crystal. I have such a laundry problem right now. Especially when I'm always a little nauseous. My husband helps alot but we always have these baskets of laundry overflowing in our bedroom. Every morning my husband and I search through it looking for our next outfit. I feel so bad about it. My husband tells me not to worry about it. I guess as I have more children the older ones will be able to help. That is one big plus about having a large family: the kids help out...or atleast they should. Don't fret over laundry too much. It's not worth it.
-Zan
I guess just try different things. Like maybe a white clothes day, a darks day, a gentle cycle day, etc..
There may not be an answer, lol.
And jessica, kodos to your parents for being able to get their kids to do laundry. My 17-year old younger brother still hasn't ever done a load. You better believe I was doing laundry from a younger age though.
Sounds like my house Crystal! I do laundry every single day so there's plenty of clean laundry, it's getting it folded and put away that's the challenge. I've tried only allowing myself to put more laundry in the washing machine if the previous two loads have been folded and put away. It works somedays...I'll follwing this post with interest too!
~Jenny (jennyven)
I just think it's something you have to alot time for each day.
Hi Crystal,
What I do is one load per day. I don't do a whole lot of sorting, aside from the bleachable whites, so most everything can go into the same washer load each day. With this method, I'm constantly doing laundry, but its in a very managable format. (Grin)
Good luck finding the method that works best for you. Take care.
I always do start to finish. When the dryer stops (dings), I pull-out, fold and drop into basket. Those things which need hangers or a touch up with an iron go over the back of a chair. When the basket is full, it immediately goes to the bedroom. I then fetch the hanging clothes and put on hangers. The basket cannot set there...like letting the sun go down on your anger, don't go to sleep with laundry not put away!
Same as Anonymous- I fold it right out of the dryer (or off the clothesline) and put it into the laundry baskets already folded. When all of my brothers still lived at home, I sorted it into baskets by destination- I had a basket for my parents, one for me & my grandma, one for the linen closet, then a couple for brothers' clothes. Folding and then putting it right into the destination basket was the only way I could have kept on top of it all :)
Oh yeah I hear ya. I have a basket I need to fold sitting in the lounge room right now. I'll fold it as I watch a movie sometime later. Or while I'm chatting on the phone to my mum. I love to work while I make phone calls. Due to the nature of my work we bought a headset that plugs into our cordless phone and I can clip the phone to my belt and wander around doing laundry, cooking, cleaning etc all while I work! It's great!
My Mum (I'm the oldest of 7) has probably the BEST system for washing that I know. She started all of us washing our own clothes when we hit our teen years and hasn't looked back! :) Even the guys have to do their own laundry and it really cuts down on her work plus teaches them responsibility. She currently only washes for herself, my Dad and the two youngest boys (9 & 10). However, when she was still washing for a lot of people she would hang the clothes on the line (doesn't have a dryer) in room/people order. EG little boys room clothes on one part, Mum & Dad's stuff another part etc and that way as she pulled the clothes off the line she folded and placed them in order of rooms. That way as soon as she got back into the house she would just go from room to room placing clothes away.
Obviously for me and DH that's not such an issue in our 2 bedroom apartment but I do have a rule that unless I've folded and put away the washing I can't do another load. Also, having only ONE clothes basket helps coz I can't take another load to the laundry until it's empty! *grin*
All the best as you find a system that eases the overwhelming job we call thelaundry.
Oh and one more thing and then I promise I'll stop talking.
Another thing my mum did for a long time when she was not feeling well was place a large old dining table in a corner of our house and that was the folding table. She would take all the clothes to that one table, fold it and place it in piles according to person and each person was resonsible for coming and taking their clothes to their cupboards. (Except those too little to do this or Dad.) You need space for this but it was really good. Kinda a slow way to ease into us doing our own washing as kids.
Same here, I fold it as it comes out of the dryer, then put it away immediately, just so I don't have to look at it! :P
But it wasn't always that way. Laundry was my chore when I was growing up, and sometimes I let it slide. So, what my dad did to keep me on task was everytime he saw a laundry basket full of clothes to either wash or fold, he put a sticky note on it. So, if there weren't any stickies, I felt pretty darn good; if there were several, I knew I'd been lazy and what's worse, HE knew I'd been lazy. You better believe if I saw a laundry basket with more than one of those things, I dropped everything to take care of it!
So, I know your husband says he doesn't mind, but I think (and I'm not criticizing, I think he's being a good guy) his attitude is enabling you. It's important to you to get that laundry done, right? So ask him to recognize its importance to you, by letting it bother him. Sometimes, no matter how much things bother us personally, it's only when another person is bothered that we finally take action. Perhaps a method like my dad's will help, or maybe just knowing that your husband likes things folded and put away will the impetus for you.
I hope that's helpful; I hesitated writing because I didn't want to be seen as criticizing...
:)Alice
My husband's brother and his family (wife and three children) live in a two room cottage on the side of a mountain in Oregon. Their solution to laundry is to not have very much to begin with! They've pared their wardrobes down to the absolute essentials; this saves on storage and on laundry. I would NOT want to live like this but they seem to enjoy it.
Laundry is one of those things I can't stand...it's never finished!This sounds terrible; but I put the loads of dried laundry on our bed! Sometimes I fold as they come out of the dryer; but other days I don't. However, I know that if I want to go to bed I have to fold them and put them away!
I periodically have this struggle if I have been too busy and away from home.
We live in Germany for now, and the washing machine is 1/3 the size of a normal American washer. The cycles take about 1.5 to 2 hours. So I feel like all I do is "reboot the laundry". Its the first thing I do after I've gotten ready for the day.
A "reboot" means: new load in washer, hang or tumble dry wet clothes, fold dry clothes, sort by room, and put away.
Before Breakfast: Reboot Laundry
At 10:30: Reboot Laundry
After Lunch: Reboot Laundry
Around 4pm: Reboot Laundry
After Dinner: Reboot Laundry
Before Bed: Reboot Laundry
So if I'm diligent and home all day I can get 6 loads in. Since Tuesday is my errand day, I get behind, but if I do 6 loads the next day I can catch up. This system has worked okay for me.
Crystal, like you and most everyone else here I, too, have the piles sitting around!
But here's the way it should go if I were more diligent. (I shall have to work on this!):
I hang up hang-upables as I take them out of the dryer (Why not collect hangers to keep in the laundry room?)
Then I have a "folding spree." Fold as fast as possible. The point is not perfection, just basic function. I used to try to fold everything in perfect creases, but that's probably just a waste of time!
I agree with Jessica and some of the others. Older kids can do their own laundry.
I have some dear friends at my church and they turn doing the laundry into a family game of fun! They built shelves into their laundry room, and each shelf has a member of the family's name on it. When a load gets pulled out of the dryer. They do an assembly line: one person takes a piece of clothing out and says who it belongs to, the next person folds it, and the next "files" it away on the shelf where it belongs. If they have alot to fold, they switch places every once in awhile so the same person doesn't get stuck with folding the whole time! Once it's done, it is each person (including kids') responsibility to get their folded clothes from the laundry room and put them away in their rooms.
Also, I feel silly sharing this, but growing up my older sister and I had to fold clothes all the time and we despised it. So we started pretending that we had to "fold clothes for the queen" and if we didn't hurry and finish we'd get in trouble! (The queen was imaginary, not my mom!)
Anyway, the point is make it into a game..and maybe it will be more enjoyable.
Here's what I do - I wash through the week, and line-dry [or in bad weather dry on racks by the heaters which really bugs me!] then I put away things like undies, night wear, tea towels, bath towels etc. Everything else gets folded into a basket in the study and once a week [unless we run out of clothing!] I iron everything. Maybe you are washing too often or just getting through too many items: I change our entire bed once a week in summer; just the bottom sheet and top pillowcase weekly in winter - and children's bedding gets washed every two weeks unless more frequent washing is needed. I only change our towels weekly as well, unless they are dirty. I think too once there are little ones, standards have to relax a little - for example, I no longer iron dish cloths and tea towels but only fold them, and as we have a patchwork quilt over our duvet, I no longer iron duvet covers.
I have never known English people to express so much difficulty with laundry as Americans do - not criticising but it is a noticeable distinction to me. Maybe you should move to the UK and then that would solve your problem ;o)
Love, Lucy x
Interesting comment Lucy. It's interesting that the country that mostly uses dryers and doesn't line dry like Australia (and I take it the UK?) is the one that seems to have the most trouble. Hmm...I'm wondering what the reason for that would be. Here's a made up theory for ya: Maybe it's the fact that all preceeding wash steps are so simple and non-time consuming that when it comes to folding it seems too hard whereas to line dry and unpeg it's not much more work to quickly fold and put away. However, this is coming all from a girl who's converted to only using her dryer for the simple sake of TIME and lack of sunny line drying space. :) I definitely hate folding more than I used to!
Oh now wait I've got the answer...
It's those creepy dark basements! They are the most scary looking places from all the photos I've seen. I swear they look like a scene from a murder movie or something...not that I watch them but it's what I imagine a murder scene would be like.
Yeah that's it...it's that spooky basement! :) :)
Thus speaketh the UNexperienced basement user! :)
In our family, the children would have to wash a particular color of clothing for the week which they had the opportunity to choose themselves. Now that so many of us are older and gone during the day, we have changed our system.
We each wash our own laundry. My mom does her's and my dad's. I do laundry usually just one or two small loads a week. The problem I have run into is that by only doing one person's laundry at a time it seems to waste so much space and soap in the washer. I have started combining clothes by temperature to wash rather than colors. I wash my undergarments with other warm wash clothes and do all my cotton tops and other cotton clothing on cold. For folding, I just fold as the load gets completed. It's manageable coming from just one person.
When we were using our old system, folding was done as soon as it came out of the dryer. When a family member had something he or she was waiting to be washed so they could wear, he or she would remove it and the other clothing items from the basket to fold. Now the bad part is knowing where to put the dirty clothes. We used to have one collective clothes hamper in the kid's bathroom upstairs. However, the bathroom is small so now everyone has a hamper in their room.
I don't like this system either because it takes up space in the bedrooms. My other suggestion would be to wear an outfit several days in a row or put the clothing items back in your drawers or closet if it is not dirty at the end of the day. This saves on laundry volume. I do this with the exception of undergarments, of course.
As far as ironing goes, I hardly iron anything unless it's super wrinkled. I have some linen clothes that have to be ironed before I wear them. I do it right before I put them on. Otherwise I try to buy wrinkle resistant clothing. My mom only buys wrinkle-free or wrinkle resistant shirts for my dad. That cuts down on ironing. My mom has showed us that if you remove a garment from the dryer while it is still slightly damp and then hang it up to dry, you won't have to iron it later on. We do this with the dress shirts and slacks.
Curiously, I like doing laundry. It's one of the few household chores that I don't mind doing. I like sorting the clothes, loading them in the washer, selecting the correct water level and temperature and carefully folding them after they are dry. I actually have a feeling of accomplishemnt when I see a freshly washed and folded load of fresh laundry I have completed myself. I know it would be much harder to keep caught up with if I washed clothes for a large family. In this case I would do it one of two ways: 1)Designate a partiuclar day of the week as "laundry day" and do all the laundry on that day or 2) Do a given color on a particular day each week. To me the first method would seem superior as you could devote all your time and energy just to completing the laundry on one day. That's how they did it long ago. They had a "laundry day", "baking day", "mending day", "dusting day", etc. That's about all my tips for laundry. Just don't get too bent out of shape over it. Do what you can we you can. Hope these suggestions help.
I actually like laundry too!
Anyhow, what I do and I never get behind is when the hamper is full wash it or actually when there is aload wash it. Then I take it and dry in the evening usually here as it is hot during the day. Then I have these tubs with the boys names on them and I fold them and put them in it or just toss them in if I don't have time. Later when I have time I will take them and put them in the right drawers. I also have tubs for the kitchen rags and towels right there. I keep up pretty well this way, although in the summer there is more laundry and it builds up a bit faster!
Another thing I found is to make sure to have a place to put clothes away to. It makes things easier!
Wow! You have gotten a lot of good comments here!
I want to say that I really understand this problem. My husband helped me out on this issue and I will pass on his excellent advice that is fool-proof. Once I quit being stubborn I really got some victory in this area!
I had no problem getting the laundry washed when we married. Mountians and mountians of it. I piled it up into a mountian of clean laundry, and should have named it Neverest!!! Our bed was piled until I set up tables to fold on and then they were piled. I learned to never take it into the living room or it would be piled high wih clean mountains of laundry. "I need a shirt." "Oh, there's a clean one about half way down the mountian." Finally, I would get ambitious and decide to the top of my "Mount Neverest." I would work and sweat and fight and conquer Neverest. Aaahh. The thrill of acomplishment was great. I then got right to busy building me another mountian to conquer. I guess somewhere I had the idea that doing laundry all day was the biggest thrill I could have?
Finally, I tried the suggestion my husband had. It sounds silly and too simplistic, but how can I argue with something that really works?
The rule is you finish the job you started. That means you wash, dry, fold and put away/hang up before you do another load. The job of getting a load of laundry is then completed. It will seem slow, too slow. It's not. Which is slower: taking the job all the way to the end or digging through a mountian or two of laundry to go to church, ironing each piece as you get dressed? :-) You have to take time somewhere to do the laundry, why not right when it is ready and isn't all wrinkled and clogging up your living space?
I argued with this for a long time. I thought that I just needed to do better, be more discipline or whatever. Or worse, my argument would be something along the lines of there is no solution, this is just the way it is. Wrong. I agreed to try it and wonder of wonders, sucess the first try! I tried it again. Same results. No growing mountian, only empty drawers filling up. I was amazed. How was this possible?!
Since this amazing discovery I have learned that nearly all the women that I know that are sucessful with their laundry follow this system. Amazing! *grin*
I also learned something else on this recently. Instead of folding and organizing little kids drawers, I now hang up all clothes that can be of my 3 yr old and 18 month old. Getting dressed is a snap, as is putting their clothes away. Socks, underwear, pants and shorts go in drawers, but both kid's folded clothes fit in one small chest of drawers.
Also, downsizing is a good idea. I have done that some and it has made a difference. I am wanting to do it more. You don't have to be weird to have a simple wardrobe.
On a simple laundry washing system, this is mine. I sort my laundry into coloreds, whites, jeans, towels and baby clothes. Anything that needs special washing I put seperately but I don't have many of those. When one of these catagories is full, into the washer it goes. And then into the drawers/closets.
And uh, don't count on having it all working once you get a big family if mom doesn't have a plan. You are right, it will be a disaster. I have 7 siblings, there was not a good system, I'll let you imagine the nightmare. :-(
Hi, Crystal! What great comments on laundry you have accumulated. We are a family of 7. This equals to 23 loads per week for us, give or take a load or two. :-)
I wash 3-4 loads per day for six days, and unless someone is sick during the night, I do not wash on Sunday. Each person has an assigned day for their bedding to be washed, since we have several with dust-mite allergies. And I do combine the 3 little boys' bedding to be washed on the same day.
My 2 older ones do their own laundry and bedding. They are 14 and 10. I still oversee the process to make sure they do it.:-)
We tend to have more laundry in the winter when the boys and DH are wearing blue jeans every day.
We wash, dry, and fold as we go along. And that helps a lot. Each person has a designated spot for the laundry to be placed as it is folded, and DH & I share the only laundry basket.
I also learned to separate clothes as we change them. I have a dark clothes bin, a light clothes bin, and a towel clothes bin. It is very easy to see what load needs to be put on each morning. The older ones keep their dirty laundry in bins in their rooms.
You'll have a process down to a science by the time you have your dozen children. LOL
Blessings, Tami
My husband built me some diagonal shelves up one corner of our basement (where my laundry room is), on which 4 baskets sit. We sort our laundry into the baskets sitting on the shelves, one for towels, colors, whites and jeans.
If we notice a basket is getting full, someone starts a load. When the load is washed and dried, we have a table that has different colored crates for each family member. (You could write names on baskets or crates as well). The laundry is immediately folded out of the dryer into each person's basket and then each one is responsible to put away their clothes. Of course I put my husband's away. :-) This is definately for older children, but it has worked well for us. I know not everyone has sufficient space either to do something like this, but those of you who do, it works great.
Wow! These tips and comments have been very interesting, as an Australian it was interesting to read the comments on the difference between UK/Australians and US mothers and their washing habits. I certainly hang all my washing on the line, and fold it as I bing it in. It then goes into separate baskets (one for each family member), and then 1x week ( usually Sunday afternoon), we all put them away. Sometimes more often (you know, half an hour of 'free time', means 'go and put your basket away'!). I was astounded by the lady who did 23 loads/week!!! I do 6 for our family of 8! 1 load/day except Sundays. I don't currently sort (except for special/ bleaching items). Just toss whites and darks in together. It hasn't made any difference in the clothes at all. I also wash in cold only. I have a routine: mondays = sheets (mine every week, then alternate weeks boys/girls); Tuesdays, Wednesdays = regular loads; Thursdays = towels/washers/ tea towels etc (we change towels 1x week, and the children also share towels - gasp - 2 children per towel); Fridays and Saturdays = regular loads. We have a large machine (9 kg), but I honestly can't imagine doing 23 loads! I do make the children wear their clothes more than once (unless filthy), and often 2 or 3 times before washing. Kids clothes do not smell after 1 or 2 wears, so why wash them? Anyway, I just thought I'd add my comments to the mix - it is interesting to learn from each other. -Louisa.
I have 12 children so can sure identify with the laundry scenario. I also chat with many women since I speak frequently on Home Organization and Time Management. It is often the lack of a proper system that makes things so complicated. I highly recommend one hamper(durable plastic and well vented) be placed in the bathroom closest to the bedrooms. Everyone heads to the shower or bathroom before bed to clean up so they need to be trained to take their garments to the hamper. Each morning the hamper is carried to the laundry area and sorted into 4 bins. One for premanent press, one for T-shirts and sweat shirts, one for all dark socks and jeans and heavier fabric clothes, also the last one is for whites in which all white socks, towels and undies and dish cloths are put. Wash all coloured clothes using cold water but perm/press and whites do better with warm water wash. I have recently purchased the heavy duty stackable wash/dry systems which is by far the best choice out there. If you do have the traditional wash/dry which are side by side then do just that, make sure they are installed beside each other. Use the top of the 2 appliances as a folding center. Get use to using the timer and fold clothes immediately when finished. Make sure there is an area to hang p/p when it is done on a rod or hooks. The area above the washer and dryer can have 2 - 3 open shelves mounted above it. On these shelves place a rubbermaid dishpan for each family member. Label the front of the bucket with each members name and as soon as the clothes are folded place them into each person seperate bucket. Mom only should ever put her and Dads clothes away and the kids should be responsible from the time they are 3-4 to carry their own clothes bucket to empty it. Washing 2 loads a day rather than leaving it when it is unsurmountable is far better. Sort your laundry at night before bed and get one washer load started at night. It is finished by morning and you are ahead of the game and only have one load to do a day. If you allow your kids to leave dirty laundry in their rooms and you collect it its your fault. Who is the more intelligient one? Mom should be and remember she is to be a servant not a slave. Have fun with this one and I do know it works. Enjoy and be thankful you have a housefull to attend too. Many don't have any. TTYL - Dawn
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