This is the sorting area. Each person is responsible for sorting their own clothes. The top basket is labeled "towels" and that is where all dirty/used towels are placed. Underneath are the "dark", "light", and "white" baskets for clothing. I colored in the letters with examples of what those colored clothes may look like, although this does not guarantee they will all be sorted correctly! :-) Those lingerie bags hanging on the wall are for the children. They each have a bag in which they place their dirty socks and undies. They go into the washer and dryer and when they come out, each child folds his/her own and puts them away. It works great and saves a ton of time trying to figure out what belongs to who.
Right next to the sorting station is an area where I am able to hang clean clothes. Each person is responsible for finding his/hers and putting them away.
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| You'll notice the Tide containers in the back left corner. They hold my laundry soap that I made. Take a peek at that post here. It works pretty well, but does not get out stains as well as Tide did. I keep a stain spray handy and add a cup of baking soda to each load to help. |
And this is where all the action happens...the washer and dryer! I had my hubby paint a piece of particle board with a few coats of white paint and put it on top of the washer dryer so that I would have a folding area in the laundry room. I have a stack for each member of the family and at the end of the day, we put laundry away. I have a stack of "to be mended" or "to be ironed" and take care of that when all the laundry is completed.
I hope you were able to get an idea or two about how to stream-line your laundry process. Of course, it doesn't always work as intended (like the red shirt ending up in the whites....ugh!) and needs to be supervised. But it has freed up a lot of my time and made the children more responsible for the care of their clothing.
God Bless!
Heather :-)
Except for the laundry bags, that's just how I do it. I read Smart Martha last year and was so glad to have my laundry under control. Streamlining is the key to large families, isn't it? But for those with very small laundry rooms, you can always use a master closet for a sorting station. I've seen women do that as well.
ReplyDeleteI need to read that book! I keep seeing it referenced to and know that I could glean some good ideas out of it!
ReplyDeleteAs we look at new houses, that is exactly what I've been thinking. That possibly the master closet would be the "collection point" if the laundry room isn't big enough. The key thing is to keep it all contained so that it doesn't explode and take over each of the children's rooms!
*sigh* This is lovely. I know what I want in a laundry room but it seems as though I will pretty much always be stuck in the basement! Thanks for sharing your system here... I'm sure there is something I can use from your ideas.
ReplyDeleteGreat ideas, thank you! Yes, I will get that laundry organized one of these days. Thanks for the awesome motivation!
ReplyDeleteCan I come over and do laundry? ;) I love that your laundry room is on the same level as the bedrooms--so smart! One thing we're regretting is that when we built we did make the laundry room MUCH bigger. Of course, then we didn't have kids yet either.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post. Perhaps I need to re-think my laundry situation...