Large Family Laundry Solutions: “Before”
February 15, 2010
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I knew something had to change. I’ve been spending far too much time doing laundry for my large family (there are 7 of us, with one on the way).
Interestingly, in my days as a single mom of 4, I kept on top of laundry doing one load a day. As long as I did that, laundry never got overwhelming. During some of that time, I didn’t own a dryer and hung all the laundry outside or inside on a drying rack.
When I found myself in a house without a washing machine, I did the coin laundry thing for awhile. (Surprisingly, I didn’t mind this at all. Every week, armed with about $8 in quarters and two hours, I got ALL the laundry washed, dryed and folded in one fell swoop.)
Back to my laundry management system before August 24, 2009.
Part of the reason for my success with “one load a day” despite having 4 kids was because I had instilled good laundry habits in my young’uns. I trained them to wear their jeans two or three times, until they actually looked or smelled dirty. I strongly discouraged changing outfits multiple times a day and made sure items were actually dirty before I washed them.
They also had modest wardrobes. Everyone looked good, but their dressers and closets weren’t stuffed to the gills by any means. I found that I could even get away with not sorting (since I almost never use bleach and most of their clothing was purchased used, so nothing was going to bleed). I washed boy’s laundry on one day, girls on the other. That cut down on the footwork too (since the kids were roomies).
Enter new hubs and a 10 year old step daughter, aka Big Z and Little Z (Zeke and Zoe).
Of course, I love them dearly and wouldn’t trade them for all the Soap Nuts in the world…
but suddenly I found myself doing FOUR loads a day just to keep up, much less put a dent in the piles!
I spoke to Big Z about this phenomenon (also throwing in how much I previously earned per hour as an internet marketing coach to moms and a freelance writer, teehee) and we came up with some solutions. (Well actually I came up with solutions but Big Z wielded the power tools and did the heavy lifting. Gotta love that!)
Before I unveil my new “Large Family Laundry Solution”, I’ll talk a bit about why my laundry duties quadrupled overnight and what my laundry routine of recent months has looked like.
I’ll call this the BEFORE.
(I do wish I had actually taken a picture of the monstrosity that was the “BEFORE” with its mountain of laundry all over the basement floor but alas, I didn’t. I promise nice shiny pics of the “AFTER” shortly, when I do the B portion of this post.)
Bad Laundry Habits
Let me now refer to some of the habits that create needless laundry work. The first of which is :
Bogus Laundry
Bogus laundry is clothing that isn’t actually dirty, but which is mindlessly tossed into the hamper, where the Laundry Fairy/Angel (aka Mom) magically takes care of it. A few examples:
- Bogus laundry include jeans that are worn for a couple of hours that still look and smell clean.
- Socks that were never worn but which fell on the floor because the owner didn’t put them away in a timely manner.
- My personal favorite, towels that are used to blot a CLEAN body dry after a shower, which are then tossed still damp into the hamper. Ugh! (Please tell me I’m not the only person in America who thinks it’s perfectly sanitary to use a bath towel several times?)
- Doll clothes. Double ugh.
- Suits and dresses that are worn for two hours while a child sits still in a place of worship. They ain’t dirty either.
See what I mean? All this bogus laundry was adding up to huge work (and a wee touch of resentment) for mama.
Another bad laundry habit?
Too Much Clothing
Let’s be honest. Most of us wear about 20% of our clothing 80% of the time. Why not get rid of the clutter? All it does it spill out of jammed dresser drawers and make things fall off hangers in closets (creating more bogus laundry!).
When I moved into Big Z’s house, I tactfully suggested that he toss some of the threadbare T-shirts he had been collecting since the late 80′s. Since we were moving and having to pack up this stuff anyway, he obliged. We ended up with FOUR large black trash bags full. Ahem.
My stepdaughter’s closet had enough short sleeved t-shirts in it to outfit a small orphanage. She admitted that she didn’t like or wear most of them, so it was toss! toss! pack into storage for her new younger stepsister! She was thrilled to create tons of new space in her closet.
Another factor is my husband changing clothing several times a day. First he takes off his t shirt and PJ bottoms and tosses them into the hamper (wrong, PJs can be worn several times!), then puts on work clothes which of course get nasty with furniture repair goo, then changes into exercise clothing that get sweaty and smelly, then back into PJs… not sure what to do about all these wardrobe changes!
My laundry “routine” also brought me frustration.
My washer and dryer are located downstairs in the basement. Good because of the space to move around. Bad because I was hauling laundry baskets up the stairs. Then I folded it in little stacks around the living room. Then I asked various children to put their stack away.
The end result was that I had multiple little laundry piles for each load creating visual clutter in my living room while I waited for kids to obey or reminded them over and over.
No good.
The new system is much better. It saves me time, labor and creates no clutter.
More on that later!
More Posts By Carrie:
- My Dryer Smells Like Cod Liver Oil
- Chores, Chores, Chores
- EcoWednesday – In Praise of the Humble Clothesline
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You have an award over at my blog!
http://www.wonderfullychaotic.com/2010/02/blog-awards.html
Good tips – missing reading your posts on your carrielauth.com blog.