No clothes in bedrooms, just one big family wardrobe room/utility - too radical?

[Crocodilio]

We are going to be redesigning a house we are buying to include a big extension, increasing it from a two-bed to a four-bed.

My pet hate, and the job that always gets put off as long as possible, is laundry sorting and putting away. There are two adults and three children.

Following yesterday's utility room thread, I've been pondering the best designs to minimise laundry piles, and am thinking that if we had no clothes stored in bedrooms, but instead had a big laundry room with enough clothes storage for us all, it would be easier to organise, and also to shut the door on and pretend it didn't exist!

My three boys are still small though, would this be a bad thing as they get older?

Also, it's not our 'forever house', so would future purchasers think this odd? There'd be enough room in the bedrooms to add in storage if they wanted though, I guess.

Would lack of privacy be a problem?

Opinions gratefully received!

I have three boys, now aged 13, 8 (very soon) and 5. I think it would be a bad idea as they get older as ideally you need to teach them to manage their clothes, rather than just be dependent on you. We have drawers in their bedrooms and each one is labelled so the two youngest learn where things are, and ultimately, how to sort and put away. I regret not doing this with the eldest earlier as he is about as rubbish at keeping on top of things as me! They each need their own clothes storage, their own laundry basket etc, otherwise eventually you will go insane.

I now pay the two oldest to put clothes away and all of them get paid to help with my MOST hated task, sorting socks. 5p a pair... I also have colour coded things to help me them so I get the blue, grey and black socks from Next which have the sizes inside the 'neck'; each has their own colour and it makes life so much easier...

So my verdict is no!

Ok, that makes sense. Couldn't I pay/bribe/beat them to put the stuff away in the new place though?

I think that is a great idea, I am so sick of bloody clothes everywhere, if i could design my own house thats what I would do, I also have a no toys in bedroom thing, I have a 'toy library' in the spare room cupboards that contains all of the toys that are not in use. Just think of the joy of having the facility to iron and to sort all clothes into appropriate spaces, you will not loose socks, Go for it.

Lack of privacy is not an issue, as they can take the clothes to thier own rooms or bathrooms to change.

The thing is though I think as the kids get older, it is important to help them take responsibility for their own clothes, and having them in their own rooms is a 'signal' of that. I'd be worried a clothes room would end up 'mum's laundry sorting room' and no one would ever go in there except me! They could of course help but the message would be there...

I also wouldn't want to give up a whole room to laundry/clothes storage as I have other things I need rooms for!

I also make my kids (now the youngest is 5) keep all their toys/stuff in their bedrooms. I want other rooms used for other things and while it's OK for them to bring stuff downstairs, eventually they need to help put it back again. I want them to develop the tidying up skills I never learnt as a child, to value their own stuff and also to know when their rooms are too cluttered so they understand they need to find homes for things they want to keep and recycle the things that are broken/never played with. If parents control the space/objects too much, I don't think they will learn that

But I appreciate everyone has their own way of doing things...

Also [I'm not dead agin it, just really playing devil's advocate in case you haven't thought of everything...] would the dirty clothes in a utility/laundry room end up making the clean ones smell a bit? Our laundry piles in the utility room create a rank fug from boy dirt - a mix of sweat, shite, mud and many unmentionable things including Lynx now we have a teenager. I'm quite glad to shut the door on it.

bad idea. we have a pile of clothes after washing in the utility room. often one of them will select something and put it on dropping the rest of the floor half the time.

I usually put a pile on my bed and divide it up. no one ever puts clothes away unless i put it in their rooms. they are teenagers.

That would be my dream!!!!!! I have teenagers and younger children and I think it would work well. Maybe pyjamas and underwear in the bedrooms? I think it would be very time saving to have it all in one room!

Some relatives of ours that live abroad have a similar system -I'm not sure if its a common thing in their country or just something particular to them though.

They have a 5 bed house (2 adults, 1 grown-up child still at home, 2 other grown-up children and their children visit and stay overnight regularly) and one room is a drying/airing/ironing/wardrobe room.

There is a tumble drier in there, a wall mounted airer, the ironing board with really handy shelves next to it to stack clothes on when ironed and then a wall of rails/shelves etc with most of the family's clothes on.

I thought it was a great idea as it left all the cupboards in rooms free for other things which meant the rooms looked really uncluttered.

i have often thought of this, i think its a great idea, folding,sorting and putting away laundry is my pet hate!

my elder 2 do their own, infact all 4 boys aged 13, 10, 7 and 4 will help fold etc, tho the 4 yr olds folding may need re-doing! and then there is dd who at 20mths has an embarrasing amount of clothes

i know the duggars of 19 kids and counting do this! tho that may actually put me off...

but i still think it is a great idea!

oh and mine help folding, pairing socks etc, i do NOT pay them however, they are all just expected to pitch in and help as they are part of the family unit.

We live abroad and our house only has very small fitted wardrobes in each room. However our family bathroom has 2 double wardrobes next to it and a walk in wardrobe consisting of fitted chest of drawers and then a small corridor with shelvs either side from floor to ceiling and full length mirrors at the end. This arrangement works well for us. Our utility is in our annex next to the second bathroom which is not such a good arrangement! If the corridor in the walk-in was wide enough to iron in it'd be perfect.

I'd love a large utility room with lots of storage but I'd hesitate to use it for all clothes. Would keep towels, bed linens, spare duvets etc there. Also could be good for out of season clothes so bedroom storage could be smaller. Would have counter space for folding, airers and ironing stuff in there as well as the obvious sink, washing machine and tumble dryer.
What a lovely dream and impossible in current house!!!!

We kind of do this anyway as the clean washing is always in a pile in the utility as I can't be arsed to put it away!!! It's a bit of a pita to have to trek downstairs to find something to put on. I do think future buyers would think it a bit weird.

My mum is planning to do this but only in her holidaynhome. Makes more sense in that context inthink as there are more communal things in that context and people are arriving with bags each time.

Not sure about it for main home though

If I was designing a house I would put the utility room upstairs where all the sodding clothes are...would save all the effort of taking clean/dirty stuff up/down all the time!

i watched place in the country and this amazing house had both bathrooms downstairs plus bedrooms (topsy turvey)with door leading off from them to a utlity room.

i can see my one now with clothes piled up ready to be sorted into more piles for each individual. they usually end up on my bed, i forget about them, go to bed and there they are. DH pushes them to my side of the bed. never attempts to put them in other bedrooms.

oh well

ggirl - our utility room is on the same floor as the bedrooms and it does make a fantastic difference as the whole process (from getting undressed -dirty laundry basket - washing - drying -ironing -cupboards/wardrobes) all happens on the same floor.

NorbertDentressangle sounds great -is your utility room upstairs or do you love in a bungalow?

ROFL -no I don't love in a bungalow, or live in one either.

Our house is an unconventional layout, a sort of upside down house so the bedrooms, a bathroom and utility room are all downstairs. It works really well in this case.

My idea of heaven: a laundry shute

Down sides:

It will reinforce that cleaning and sorting clothes is your job, not anyone else's.

Teenage boys will wander around in their pants finding clothes at inopportune moments, such as you have visitors. If you can minimise the wandering to their own bedrooms, all the better.

If things are in the one room, rather than being clearing in separate rooms, you will have people help themselves to other people's stuff, causing arguments. (this will probably happen anyway, but at least it'll be less tempting to help yourself if you have to go into someone else's room who might be in there to tell you to bugger off, also it will be easier to argue 'stay out of X's room' than 'stay out of X's bit of the commual wardrobe')

Dirty teenage boys clothes smell. They will make your clothes smell if stored together.

My Dad and his 3 brothers had a communal cupboard in which all their clothes were kept.

We had our wardrobe in the spare room for a while and it was shit. I was forever running around in my pants trying to find clothes.

I have a set of stacking crates in the utility room, as I take dry clothes off the airer or out of the tumble dryer, they go straight into a named crate. When full, the crates go upstairs and put in the room of named child. One day, I will have another set of crates so there's one upstairs waiting to be emptied and one downstairs, but for now it works.

This is really interesting, thanks for the range of opinions. I should have said that I was planning on this room being upstairs, so minimising the need for naked wandering around house.

In my ideal fantasy world, I'd also have a big window and outside it, a drying line on a circular pulley system so that I could hang my line-dry washing up without having to carry baskets up and down too! Hang something up, move the line along a bit, hang next thing up...

i like the sound of the named crates. sometimes i put things in one of those storage boxes which folds down then pop in their rooms. maybe i should perservere.

i have tried to stop doing some of the ironing though because the girls are 17 and 18 and it is not appreciated.