First time ever having a laundry room! Help me out MN

[Teachingteacher]

For the first time in my adult life, I’m moving to a house and will have a separate laundry room in the basement! Until now, I’ve had the washer/dryer in the kitchen or bathroom, and clothes have been hung all over the apartments we’ve lived in. Fine when it was just me and DH, but now we have two young DC, 5 years and 8 months.

Laundry will be in the basement and it’s a 3 storey house. Our bedroom and DS’s bedroom will be on level 1, DD (and potential future child) will be on level 2.

How do I organise my laundry? Give me all your advice!! How does my family bring dirty laundry downstairs and clean laundry upstairs? Should I get a top loading washer and dryer? What capacity? How do I hang things? Tell me your favourite products.

(I've moved it to the other side now and put a hanging rail below the Sheila maid)

I would definitely get a laundry chute installed.

A laundry room is like a utility room, that's where all our laundry is anyway so I would look at threads on those to get some ideas for racks and storage cupboards.

I echo a pp, see if you can get a laundry chute!

H&M does these wonderful laundry baskets that we have in each of the kids rooms, they are light and cute and a good size, with handles to carry… they come in different prints…

https://www2.hm.com/en_gb/productpage.0887421011.html

We have an ikea laundry bag on each floor and then kallax shelves with 5 boxes in the laundry room downstairs where I sort by colour and temperature

Most obvious solution. Who has the time to cart washing down stairs.

You need to have a routine OP.

So, like others have said, a basket of some sorts on each floor, get taken down every evening or whatever. Then set up the basement with shelving and make a people pile each once the washing is dry. Assuming you will be mostly drying in the basement that is.

Top loaders are popular here too, but I prefer the front loader for a few reasons. They do take a smaller load, but (well the ones we get) don't heat the water, so if you want a hot wash you need to have plumbed from the hot tap. Most people here using top loaders just do a cold wash. Also I think they are a bit more harsh on clothes. Benefits are they take way more in one load, are quicker than the auto programmes, and will probably last longer.

This is not popular on here but my main tip is to run everyone's laundry separately.

We have a basket for each person and when it's full (approx every week), we do that load. It has removed the sorting issue completely, when the load is done, I take it to that person's room and put it away. No wasted time separating DS1's socks from DS2's etc.

Whenever we do a mixed load - if we have been away usually - I am reminded of how annoying it is.

Disclaimer: we have no whites really in this house so doing all colours together is fine.

What can’t you manage? It’s not exactly taxing.

Is there good ventilation in the laundry room? In our utility room we have indoor lines to dry clothes on when I can’t dry them outdoors. I can dry a load of washing overnight.the boiler is in the same room as well as a fridge and freezer so it’s always a reasonable temperature. The trickle vent on the window is always left open to make sure that there’s a bit of air movement. We don’t struggle at all with mould from humidity but that might be a consideration for you.

I have a wash basket on the landing. Everyone is responsible for putting their washing in. I sort on the landing and have a collapsible basket that fits one wash load in to carry downstairs. I tend to do one load at a time so I don’t have too much drying at once.

What can’t you manage? You’re moving house but presumably the output of washing your family creates remains the same as in your previous one?!

How much washing do people have that they can't take an ikea bag downstairs once or twice a day surely you have to walk downstairs to put the washing machine on. It's no different to living in a three storey house

@QuizzlyBears You can’t see the difference between doing laundry in a small apartment where it takes 2 seconds to walk to each room, and laundry in a house with multiple staircases? With, what I imagine will be, multiple trips up and down stairs?

@Scaryshepherd When you say you sort on the landing, does your landing washing basket have separate compartments for white/darks/linens etc? Do you have a brand that you use?

@Muchtoomuchtodo yes I think this might be an issue. There is a tiny little window and a vent, but I’m not sure how I’ll go with a lot hanging up at the same time. It’s very dry down there right now, but the house was owned by an elderly couple who didn’t use the laundry much in the last few years because of the stairs.

There are only 4 people though so there shouldn't be a huge amount of washing, surely not more than one load a day

Do you wash your towels daily as this is a common MN trait

I’d stick to a front loading washing machine if you can - we had a top loader in the US and it was really hard on our clothes.

Nothing as sophisticated as that. One standard wash basket with a lid. I tip it out. Grab what I need and put it in my folding carry basket. Chuck everything else back in the standard basket. Wander down to my washing machine with my folding basket tucked under my arm.

I moved from a small apartment with a combined washer/dryer in the kitchen, to a large three storey house with dedicated laundry room.

I genuinely have never put a second of thought (before this post) into the logistics of how to do the washing.

Honestly, if your washing life is this complicated, maybe send your washing to a serviced launderette and skip the third child?

I’m mainly on this thread out of envy, but I’d recommend a really good dehumidifier. And will you have a sink? That for vom and poo removal and stains soaking would be the dream.

The key thing will be whether you have room to sort and store laundry in your laundry room or not.

Our house is on 3 floors and I don’t have room to store by the washing machine, so everyone has a laundry basket in their bedroom. Each morning I work from top bedroom down, opening windows and sorting out what load I will be doing that day which I bring down in a basket (1 trip). I then wash and dry (either in dryer or on line, weather dependent). Then I sort dry laundry into piles on the kitchen table, leave the ironing in the ironing basket downstairs, and then reverse my way back upstairs putting the relevant pile away in the relevant bedroom. 1 trip.

None of this was rocket science to work out, plus was the exact same system I used in my previous tiny flat.

I would love a dedicated laundry room though!

But then how will she get it back upstairs? Sounds like they need a dumb waiter installing that can do both the ups and downs.

But surely carrying washing up and down stairs is the normality to anyone who lives in a house? Plus our garden is down a flight of stairs so it has to come down from the bedrooms to the utility room to be washed, then down to the garden to be pegged out usually, and then all the way back up two flights of stairs to the bedrooms to be put away.

I'm utterly hopeless at domestic duties by MN standards, but that's something even I can manage.

This.

washing by person rather than load has been a total game changer for me. Everyone has a personalised basket which gets done when needed. It makes the folding/putting away so much easier.