Laundry. We have a washer, a dryer, and a drying rack for clothes that should not go into the dryer. The laundry room also contains iron and an ironing board as well as the sink. I like to use hot water, T prefers to use cold wash.
Detergent: some eco stuff we get from Target; it smells like lavender so we like it. Sometimes we use stain remover. We don’t use any dryer sheets, but have four dryer balls. Our laundry room is on the second floor, right off my daughter’s room.
Laundry is done once, sometimes twice a week. As a family, we do not have a lot of clothes, and doing laundry once or twice a week usually works. Usually. We sometimes separate lights and darks. Colors go together with darks. Type of cycles: usually just “normal”. When washing the sheets I like to select “bedding”. Smelly kitchen rags and towels go in on “sanitize”. Rarely I use “gentle” on my bliuses but more often than not I throw them on “normal.”
Folding. Is an Achilles heel! We wash the clothes but to put it away takes a long time. In times of overwhelm, we can have clean laundry piled up on top of the washing machine and dryer, have a load sitting IN the dryer, as well as in the clean laundry basket. We’ve been known to run out of t-shirts and just fish one out of the clean laundry pile. I do not like how these clean laundry piles look but that is something we have to deal with sometimes. Hey, when T is travelling for work and I’m doing solo parenting, I’m thankful to have clean shirts and socks that I can just find by sifting through clean laundry.
Baskets. One dirty laundry basket in our bathroom, one in kids bathroom. A laundry “sorter” on wheels in the laundry room, with labels for rags, whites, colors, and cold. One clean laundry basket in the laundry room to transport folded clothes back into closets/draws.
Closets and drawers.
Me: a small closet where my dresses and blouses are hanging up. One chest of drawers with all the other stuff.
T: exactly the same! A small closet where his suits and dress shirts are hanging up. One chest of drawers with all the other stuff.
L: exactly the same! A small closet where his suits and dress shirts are hanging up. One chest of drawers with all the other stuff.
R: a rack with hangers for sweaters at his height, plus open baskets with pants, t-shirts, and socks. This way he helps himself.
In my ideal world, the stream-lined laundry *should* look like this: bring dirty launtry into the laundry room-> start wash -> place wash in the dryer when ready -> take out of the dryer, fold immediately -> bring back to closets/drawers. Time: 1-2 hours.
In the real world, the laundry looks something like this: let basket overflow -> bring dirty launtry into the laundry room-> start wash -> place wash in the dryer when ready -> take out of the dryer -> place on top of the dryer -> fold when we remember or when we can’t stand the look of our laundry anymore-> place folded laundry into the clean laundry basket -> let that sit for a while -> maybe bring back to closets/drawers, whatever is left. Time: one to two weeks.
Mom of Children 