I’ve had fucking enough of laundry.

[Fatmamslim]

I hate it I hate it I hate it.

there are four of us in the house.

We work full time and there never seems to be enough time to keep on top. We live out of clean folded baskets.

do you have a working system to stop it feeling like an endless avalanche of shite

I totally disagree with the "little and often/one load a day" brigade.

Do it all in one day, once a week. For arguments sake, lets say that day is gonna be Saturday. On Friday night gather all the laundry together and put in it's different piles then before you go to bed put the longest washload on first, overnight, so that it's done in the morning. Next, put the next longest wash load on. And so on and so on.

The reasoning behind this is that the longest ones are drying whilst the next longest ones are washing and your left with the quick easy ones. Tumble dry as much as you can and then straight out of dryer and away, quick iron if necessary. By the end of the day everything will be washed, dried, ironed and put away and you won't have to think about it for another week.

I got this method of "A Slob Comes Clean" and it's very effective. You have to try it though to be convinced. At least give it a go a couple of times.

I don't mind the laundry, it's the folding and putting away.. I try to only do it at the weekend (3 of us) and have high capacity machines to support that, then I put on an episode and fold (and iron eldest's shirts now he's at secondary and only just settling in, so I'll do his ironing for now)

I did try a laundry service, they didn't do a great job of folding though, and then they lost a week's worth of washing, and weren't sure they'd find it (and the amount they were offering in compensation was ridiculously low) so I stopped.

Ideally, I'd find a house keeper who'd do all the basics like sweeping and folding laundry, but that's a whole other job I can't face at the moment.

Have you got approporaite storage for clothes? I am finding at the moment I am avoiding putting clothes away as my daughters wadrobe is over run with clothes that don't fit her. I've bought her new clothes but now there's just to many!

Tomorrow I plan on emptying her wadrobe so I can put away easier. I don't iron or fold todler clothes.

I put the washing on, and put it away once it's dry but always task DH with hanging out wet washing while I put DD to bed as this is my least favourite task.

Oh, and I don't seperate loads. I just use colour catchers

Laundry is my least hated chore by a long way. I only separate whites, everything else gets bunged in whenever there is a full load ready. Including one whites wash (which is annoyingly always half empty because it's only DC's school polo tops and DH's cricket stuff in the summer as I detest white clothes, towels and bedding) I probably do 4 loads a week which is plenty. Sort ironing and non ironing as they come off the line/out of the dryer.

Non-ironing gets into drawers that evening, ironing done once a week. Which I unapologetically enjoy doing.

I don't mind it becayse there's no cleaning or wiping involved

I don't even have a tumble dryer but I had to buy a dehumidifier for my DS room after the roof leaked last year and now use it for the laundry and it dries them out super quick

Yep yep yep I totally agree with this. Washing every day = 7 loads plus towels/bedding a week (could easily be 10 loads!). I do a supplementary load during the week, usually on a Weds but flexible based on when someone has thrown spag bol all down a white shirt. And then everything else on Saturday. And there’s five of us.

I don’t understand how you can do a whole family’s washing for a week in one day unless you pretty much tumble dry everything? I try to tumble dry as little as possible mainly in the interest of saving money (worked out it costs around £2.50 per load 😬) but also there’s a fair few things that either can’t be tumbled dried or just generally don’t fair well in the dryer. So we use our airer and the line as much as possible but if I had 5 loads of wet washing I could only hang one load on the airer, maybe do one load in the tumble dryer and then I’d have the remaining 3 loads of washing sat around damp. We don’t have space to have multiple airers unless I wanted to have them in the bedrooms etc.

So I try to do a load a day but I have a two day turnaround process (which explains why it never feels done!). I tend to put it on a timer in the morning so it’s ready when I get home from work. Then in the evening I hang it up or put it in the tumble dryer and then it’s dry by the next day. So in the winter I never manage to get a load done each day because it takes more than a day to dry. I agree it’s shite.

I don't have this down but two things that have helped me:

Doing everyone's washing separately - everyone has their own basket, when it's a full load, we run it, when it's done, the basket can go straight to that person's room to be put away, no having to divide it into piles.

We both WFH some days and when we have the sort of meeting where you are mainly listening, turn the camera off and put away some laundry

Totally feel the pain , I was away last week on holiday with my friend - totally jet lagged and my case was delayed but turned up lastnight. Came down this morning to a mountain of laundry deposited by ‘D’H to do from last week as obviously washing and tumble drying it was beyond him !

Four loads churned today while working at home but all just now in a huge pile on the dining table - he can sort them
out when he gets home !

The key is putting it all away as sson as the load is dry. Only handle it once. The job isn't emptying the tumble drier/airer, it's that AND putting it away.

That said, if you're not in the routine I'd be tempted to empty all wardrobes/drawers whatever and get rid of clothes you don't wear. Make sure the drawers and rails aren't so crammed full that putting it away is a ball ache. If you start with super tidy and organised wardrobes it makes the whole putting if away immediately much easier.

Try it.

the thing with chipping away and doing a load a day is that you do laundry every day!! I felt it took over exactly for that reason.

I read “a slob comes clean” and switched to once a week.

It has changed my life! No longer overwhelmed with it. Freedom 6 days a week from it. Saves water and electricity.

Family of 5, school sports, messy toddler…this still works for us.

Add a mirror and laundry hamper to the utility room, and call it the dressing room.

Daily loads
Timer set for early am.
Wake up peg it out / or on airer of raining
Tumble whilst getting ready

Each evening fold put away, or into ironing basket. Iron 1 - 2x a week.

1 load wash at night fold ready to go out in morning too.

6 of us.
Normal work clothes, dh work clothes have to be washed seperate. Kids uniform from 3 different school colors.
1 college student with clothing for that course which gets washed seperate.

2 x loads a day min

Those doing it all in one day doesn’t that mean that you can’t have any real plans one day of your weekend? It wouldn’t work for us as we are out and about on our weekends and I wouldn’t want to have to be back after 1-2 hours to do more washing.

Just this, aren't you tied to the house most of the day washing and drying? And how do you dry it all in one day?

Load is an hour, can get two done before we go anywhere easily. Which is all we usually have: one dark, one light (washing machine with big capacity helps). Massive airer. Pants and socks are tumble dried. Tshirts/shirts/jumpers are hung to air on coat hangers. If I need to do towels or bedding than those go in the tumble dryer. That’s a third load which I can always put on a timer if we’re going out. But I do a supplementary load midweek so not sure how people who do everything on the weekend do it (I assume it’s the same though?)

7 in my house and even the 13 year old will put the washer in before he goes to bed and me or hubby will hang out to dry before work in morning

Family of 6 here I hate doing washing and can't keep on top of it. I'm not a routine person so doing two loads a day doesn't work for me. I bagged the lot of it up yesterday and took it to the laundrette. I had 5 big machines. 3 hrs and it was all washed dried and home packed away. The relief was immense 😆

Solar panels. Use during the day.

Check out Rock the Housework (podcasts on Patreon) which is part of The Organised Mum. I use a session on there most days to get something laundry related done and it's much faster especially when it comes to putting away washing.
It does never end.

I'm guessing 2 out of 4 are too young to help but if not wtf everyone should be helping.

We did as kids everyone had to go help fold everything up and rske what was there's and put it away.

Put a load on each night and hang out to fry first thing - outside or airer
Anything left damp when we get home is in the dryer.

Each person has one load - I remove things that haven’t been worn - fold and I to their basket.

Uniforms washed and ironed on a Sunday ready for the week- I don’t iron anything else

Washing is one of those things that if you let it slip, you end up drowning in it.

I often put a wash on on an evening and put it out next day. If you're working, either set it overnight or set it to finish as you get home.

I hate hanging washing on a line so I'll only do it in summer. Winter it goes in the tumble dryer.

Putting clothes away I tip clean washing onto our bed and sort into three piles for each of us. I tend to do this just before getting into bed (our cat wees on anything soft left on the floor so I'm forced to put it away!)

You just need a bit of a routine.

This helps massively. Make sure you're only washing things that NEED to be washed. Like, nothing should be 'after 1 wear' (apart from knickers/undies) or 'after 3 wears'. Do it when they're dirty/smelly. You will save yourself A LOT of time and energy this way! Plus the clothes will last longer as washing shortens the life of them.