LAUNDRY HACKS

[tiersta]

A brutal technique to sort our clothes out? Please? A quick fix Anyone?

Clothes everywhere... Nothing to wear...

Boring 😴

Not sure what you're asking. Is this about tidying your clothes or washing them?

Tidying! Washing is easy it's all the other bits

Clothes everywhere sounds like you either need a declutter or more storage.
If it is Declutter - get three containers, bin bag, box, laundry basket. Label throw away, give away/sell, put away. Spend 15 minutes each day x 5 per week if you haven’t got much time or longer if you have energy/ time. I prefer doing a small bit at a time. Finish process by putting boxes in car for taking to right place.
Take before and after pictures for motivation.
Good luck, you’ve got this.

Wash at 30. No need to seperate clothes

Tidy up clothes as soon as they’re dried after washing them.

Throw away immediately anything that’s broken and no longer fixable.

Donate or sell what you no longer wear.

Oxygen bleech and a brush are amazing for all sorts of stains.

Declutter them so you have enough storage for the clothes that you own.
Then do a load every day so you are always on top of it. Boring but that’s worked for us.

Put extreme Summer and Winter clothes away in boxes or empty suitcases.

What’s left is your core wardrobe and you can work on that.
Throw away tired/stained underwear, pjs and tshirts, take stuff that doesn’t suit you to a charity shop and offer unworn impulse buys to friends or family. Sell it online if you have the energy.

When you need the extreme weather stuff you can sort out in the same way. A lot of your Summer clothes will look a bit tired and out of date (I personally haven’t bought any new clothes since lockdown began and you can tell!).

Only buy what you need in small quantities from now on. Dress in layers and have a good coat for each season.

We wash each person's separately as we realised our bottleneck was sorting them out. I think this may be what you are saying?

So we gave each person a basket, with a day of week written on, then they put their washing in on that day (we didn't separate colours etc), took the next empty basket to be their new dirty laundry basket - kids did this for themselves from about 8 or 9. Adults made sure all laundry was hung to dry and then taken down into a basket to return to room. So everyone did theirs every 5 days even if only half load. This way no more than one load per day, no sorting, no backlog. And if there was no laundry in we could check who was due to do it that day and remind them... it worked really well for a couple of years. As they got older we've moved back to doing it when basket full, so we only have washing on 5 days a week. But everyone does their own is key.

You've got too many clothes.

My system is as follows (fascinating)

I've got two big plastic baskets and four smaller baskets (one for each person).

I use the big ones for sorting out the laundry I'm doing (carrying it downstairs, hanging it up etc) then after it's dry I sort directly into the baskets belonging to each person.

I've got a retractable clothes line outside and a heated drier inside.

No ironing as standard. People are welcome to iron if they want.

Then I murder anyone who doesn't put their clothes away and return their personal basket by the time it's needed next.

Wash by person not by clothes type.

Here's what I do.

Have a basket for lights and one for darks in the kitchen, when full I do a load.

Basket in each room for them to put dirties into which are then taken down and deposited into each basket.

In lounge I have three baskets for each person of clean clothes that are ready to go up and be put away once full.

This means I have 7 baskets for laundry in a small house, but it's actually less cluttery than having the laundry all over the place.