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Housekeeping

How do you organise your laundry?

33 replies

naichick · 05/06/2016 16:17

I feel like its everywhere and takes forever to sort out! Anyone got any amazing laundry hacks?

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ftw · 06/06/2016 00:13

Everyone puts their clothes next to the washing machine. I throw them in every time I pass so they're not on the floor. When it's full it goes on. No separating and no fetching from all over the house.

I take them off the line in the right order to make them easy to put away (so all one persons things together and separated by type of thing and even socks paired) because I like sorting outside better than sorting inside.

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jellyjiggles · 06/06/2016 05:59

One linen basket for all clothes.

Wash whites and very light pastels.
Colours (reds tend to go in darks)
Darks

Two laundry baskets.
Once dry I iron, put in basket and put away.

Towels/sheets etc I do on a hot wash on their own.

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NapQueen · 06/06/2016 06:23

We have a basket in our bedroom and a basket in the bathroom. Generally our stuff goes in the bedroom one and the dcs stuff into the bathroom one.

I tend to wash by person. For the kids it means one load each a week - their clothes are small enough. Then it gets dried, folded and put away. Dd's preschool uniform gets ironed and hung onto hangers Sunday evening.

Dh's and mine gets done by person too but split into darks and lights so roughly two loads per person per week. Dried and put away.

Towels when they start to not smell of soap powder or bubble bath. Tea towels once a week.

I find I end up doing one or two loads midweek then the rest get hammered on one day.

I did all of dd's yesterday and literally everything she owns aside from the pj's she was wearing was washed and out away and I couldn't get her sock drawer shut nor did I have enough hangers for all her tops! Might need to thin it all out.

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OhTheRoses · 06/06/2016 06:35

I have two linen baskets: one for darks and one for lights
I have the small spare set aside for ironing and drying with a Lakeland heated airer (it has a little wardrobe that ironed stuff gets put into before being given to its owners)
Today being Monday the linen baskets are empty but the tumbler is with towels, there is one more wash to do and the airer is full of almost dry washing.
Tonight the dry stuff that doesn't need ironing will be handed out and hopefully put away by all recipients - a lot of this went on over the weekend.
By tomorrow morning the ironing basket will be heaving for the lady that irons with the steam generator iron
Tuesday night is put away time
Wednesday morning there will be a load of darks to put on
Thursday morning darks out and up on airer, load of whites in
Friday morning whites up on airer (probably not a full load)
On Saturday and Sunday there will be at least six loads to do comprising at least two sets of bedding and one load of towels.
Nowadays we are pretty much four adults.
Life will look up soon when the patio is relaid and I have rotary line in place - I hate not having a washing line.

It is never ending - when DS is at uni I reckon we get away with six loads now. When he's home it's probably closer to 8 or 9. The worst is over now he doesn't play rugby three times a week.

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Pooseyfrumpture · 06/06/2016 13:31

3 baskets upstairs: lights, colours, other.
1 load of clothes a day - generally 4 days colours/2 days whites.
Towels are on "towel day" aim for once a week - 2/3 loads as there's 6 of us.
Aim for 1 load of sheets a day never achieve it

Use tumble dryer for most things that do not go on a hanger - every thing else gets hung up wet from the machine on a hanger on an indoor washing line.

Then, next to the indoor line and tumble dryer I have a crate for each member of the family, so their dry washing gets sorted directly into their own crate, which gets given to them to put away no crate no clean washing

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chloechloe · 06/06/2016 14:46

Use the delay/timer function on your washing machine so you time it to finish when you get up in the morning / come home from work. I find it easier to keep on top of the washing if I get one lot washed and hung up on Friday night after work and the next one on Saturday morning.

And make sure you keep on top of it - you should go right to the bottom of the laundry basket every week (no leaving things festering for ages), and iron and put things away in small batches rather than leaving a mountain to pile up (it'll end up so creased it'll probably need washing again!)

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RatOnnaStick · 06/06/2016 15:10

1 white, 1 towel, 2 bedding loads per week, 1 coloured load every day or two. Roughly 8-10 loads/week altogether. It's all collected from various sources, bathroom bin, bedroom basket and a downstairs collection in the utility room, washed all together and sorted into individual baskets for return to cupboards and bedrooms.

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AmyAmoeba · 13/06/2016 22:48

For me the key to keeping laundry moving is ironing. I tried various systems and what works for me is ditching the big ironing board in favour of a table top one and keeping my iron out in easy reach instead of tidying it away. I keep on top of it by doing a bit now and again rather than hauling out the board and setting up and tidying away which just led to huge overflowing piles of unsourced laundry.

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