This is the sixth installment in our series, Homemaking Your Way. Catch up on the first five here.
Forget smart phones. I firmly believe that the humble washing machine is one of the world’s greatest inventions. I love washing clothes. While I am checking email or eating lunch or doing 24-piece puzzles, clothes are being cleaned while demanding nothing more from me than a scoop of soap and the push of a button. It is like magic. I could wash clothes all day long.
Folding and putting away clothes, however, is a different story. This is a tedious, time-consuming task. So, instead of having a devoted laundry day, I just spread it throughout the week. If I do not like doing something, I put it off. If I put laundry off, the pile grows bigger. Funny how that works. Then I get overwhelmed and threaten to throw all of our clothing away and start over. For the way I am wired, I prefer dealing with 1-2 loads, instead of 1-2 mountains, of laundry at a time.
So here is my simple, boring laundry routine:
First of all, my secret: I do not sort clothing. I wash all of our clothes together on cold. There are maybe four pieces of clothing in my entire home that earn special treatment. Everything else is just good ol’ hardworking, machine washable clothing. In three years of mixing colors, I have never had a problem with colors running. If I’m nervous about a dark red shirt or new blue jeans, I may wash the item with like colors the first time. After that, I expect it to play nicely with everyone else in the washing machine. Life is too short to deal with fussy clothing.
In our house, sheets and towels are washed separately with hot water because the thought of dust mites freaks me out a little bit.
I have two laundry hampers: one in a bedroom and one in a bathroom. Dirty, dry laundry goes in the hampers. Anything that is wet or needs stain spray gets tossed straight in the washing machine to wait for a full load. Every 2ish days, I grab the two hampers and add those clothes to the machine.
When the load is out of the dryer, it gets tossed on our bed. I like folding clothes in our bedroom because it cuts out a move. I will either fold and put away clothes throughout the day [My three year old is surprisingly helpful here! While trying on 6 pairs of underwear, she sorts out clothes into piles and folds small towels. Seriously, teach your children to help with the laundry. After all, they are generating most of it.] or my husband and I will take 5-10 minutes to do it together at the end of the day.
It’s not a perfect system, but it is the easiest way for me to stay on top of the never-ending parade of dirty clothes through our home.
Here are a few out-of-the-ordinary items I throw in our front-loader washing machine:
- Shoes- Whenever our athletic shoes are looking dingy, I just wash them. To dry, simply stuff with single sheets of wadded-up newspaper. They will look and smell much better. I also toss our flip flops and our kids’ Crocs into the washing machine as needed. This has significantly extended the life & look of those shoes that take the hardest beatings.
- Couch cushion coverings- I don’t even want to think about what has been spilled or puked or wiped on our poor couch. And there are only so many times you can flip the cushions. So, every time we have an unfortunate incident involving the couch, I just unzip the cushions and wash those coverings separately on cold. I dry them on a rack and wrestle them back on to the cushion. This won’t work for every couch, but it has given ours a new lease on life.
- Feather comforters- I used to take these to be dry-cleaned every time they had a run-in with a leaky kid diaper or every spring, whichever came first. Now I just wash and line dry our down comforters and blankets before packing them up for the summer. Much cheaper!
- Dry Clean-only clothes- 99% of the time I ignore these tags, and 99% of the time I have no problem. I just wash them on a gentle setting and skip the dryer.
Final thoughts:
Don’t assume clothes are dirty simply because they were worn once. I used to toss once-worn clothing, like pajamas or sweatshirts, in the hamper just because it was easier than folding and putting it away. This wasn’t very logical. So I am trying to train myself and my family that clothes only go in the hamper if they really are dirty. Amazing, I know. Actually at this point, I would be thrilled if my darling family members would just put their clothes in the hamper instead of tossing it on the floor three feet away. What is up with that?
If you have a laundry room, paint it a happy color. We moved our washer/dryer from our garage into our house last year. The utility room is painted a bright blue-green. It makes me happy when I am in there. Even if I am shaking noodles out of my son’s pants.
And finally, no Portland-based blog post on laundry would be complete without mentioning drying clothes on a rack or line. Which my husband and I do as often as possible. No really, we do. My husband is obsessed with making our home as energy efficient as possible. As soon as we start having consistently warm, dry days, he runs a clothesline across one side of our back yard. This same husband, who is mildly allergic to household chores, happily hangs wet laundry and pulls it off the line when it’s dry. I just go with it.
Actually, to be honest, I really do love hanging clothes and watching them flap on the line while my kids play in the backyard. Strange but true. It brings back all those ridiculously romantic images of pioneer life I had as a kid. Oh, and everything comes off the line smelling fresh and feeling crisp. It’s not for everyone, but we like it. And it significantly reduces our spring/summer energy bills. According to my husband, dryers are some of the biggest power hogs in a home. He’s figured out that even our fancy front loader costs .75/load. See, I did not use the word obsessed lightly.
There you have it. That is officially the longest I have thought or written about dirty laundry in my life. Hope it helps tackle those never-ending piles in your own home.
What are your laundry tips and tricks?
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I separate, mostly because the hamper we have has three compartments LOL
Everything except towels is washed on cold GENTLE and I hang dry everything except jammies, undies, denim and the towels/blankets. I hang everything on my shower curtain rod on the proper hangers (to save a step) we’re in an apartment and don’t have room for a line, but my system works just fine! A lot of people don’t think it’s worth the effort to line dry, but not only are you saving money and the earth (of course) but it also lengthens the life of your clothes. Every time you dry something it shrinks a little bit and adds more wear. My clothes have lasted a lot longer since starting my cold/gentle/hang method and it makes it easier to resell the kids clothes because they are in better condition with less pilling.
I am relatively new to hanging my clothes outside. I probably wouldn’t have done it if I wouldn’t have found this great umbrella clothesline that is removable. So when we want to use our small yard for bbq’s and such we simply take it out and set it in the corner of the garage. It is amazing holds four loads of laundry and it is extremely strong even with it being removable.
As a new person to outside drying I have to say the right clothesline really helps and now I understand what you all mean when you talk about that awesome air dried smell. Much better than drier sheets any day! Bonus that saves me money too.
opps. I was going to put the link in my comment above and forgot. For a really good umbrella clothesline it is at http://www.bestdryingrack.com/outdoor_umbrella_clotheslines.html
I love how much this post embodies me! I do every one…except the thing about dust mites and hot water, but I sure will now!
I love to line dry in the summer, too, especially the cloth diapers and kid clothes. Jonathan refuse to allow me to do his because of how crackled it makes the laundry, but I can handle just drying his stuff. The other reason why I love the clothesline is because we have no AC and on those handful of days it is unbearably hot in the summer, the last thing I need is a dryer heating up my house even more!
Thanks, Em, love you!
My husband is from London and in London you dont see many clothes dryers in homes! I thought it a bit odd at first then I realized, they all have lines for the summer and they have drying racks for the winter. To make the clothes no so crunchy they iron everything! I HATE ironing, but I do it sometimes to make my husband happy. I think the reason behind no dryer is the cost to run it as well as the room. Houses there are so much smaller than ours, way more clutter too! I live up in Tacoma but we have a drying umbrella for summer and a rack for winter, when i get the energy to put things on it lol. Otherwise its to the dryer they go!
I’m a picky laundry person. I won’t let anyone (but my mom) do our laundry because I like it done a certain way – which I learned from my mom, of course. Anyway, the primary reason I do it this way is because it preserves clothes. Bright colors don’t get on my whites (yes, it definitely happens – my MIL washed a load at my house and ruined a whole load of lightly colored coloring) and hardly anything fades or gets that “worn out” look. I only do one load of laundry almost 5 days a week for a family of 4. I generally do the kids loads together, my husband on his own and me on my own. Everyone gets their laundry done about once every 10-14 days. I sort by color and if the loads are large enough, I sort by cotton/heavier clothing and permanent press/delicate. Everything goes in cold water, except sheets and towels go in warm water. I don’t use softener in the washing machine or dryer sheets and I’ve never had any problems – saves money and chemicals. For drying, I throw everything in the dryer on “damp dry” for one cycle. After that, almost everything gets hung up on a drying rack. It holds one full load so its perfect for doing one load per day. After I throw in the load of laundry the next day, I fold and put away the previous day’s load. It sounds tedious, but I’ve been doing it this way since I was kid so it seems normal and easy. I find that our clothes stay in really good condition. The colors are bright, the fibers aren’t worn and I’ve had parents ask me how I keep our kids clothes in such great condition. I truly think it’s because I take a little extra time in caring for them.
I just got a meter that tells me how much energy each appliance in our house uses (and the cost by day, week, and month) so I’m definitely going to see how much our laundry costs!
I don’t have a close line but I hang many of my clothes on a hanger and put them on my shower rail. No bird poop and the go straight into closet when dry.
As a family with 9 children, we have LOTS of laundry. We sort coloreds in one basket and whites in another, in the kid’s bathroom, and one of each in the master bathroom. I too do laundry everyday and hang as much in the house or out as we have room for (but after we passed 5 kids we just didn’t have room to dry everything by hanging it in the middle of the winter…). Whites get bleached and the only socks the kids are allowed to wear outside are white ones so they can be bleached!). We use homemade laundry detergent (borax, washing soda, Fels Naptha bar) – you can get the recipe easily online – and have very little issues with staining. Nursing baby poohs are the exception – I scrub those fairly clean by hand before tossing in the washing machine. It only costs us less than $2 a MONTH for laundry detergent for a family of 11.
Ever try a green bleach? I swear by Shaklee’s Nature Bright. No chemicals and it can be used on colors and whites!
I have different colored hampers in my laundry area for different colored clothes. My older kids have been doing their own laundry. They use a cold cycle, but I have really noticed how much dingier the clothes are as opposed to how they come out when I sort them. I have 5 kiddos and used to have issues with stains not coming out until I started soaking the clothes overnight before running the load. Since we have switched to a front loader, I’ve really noticed a difference in how much better the stains come out. I also clip all the socks together with a clothespin and it has made my job so much easier! I’ve found the best method for making laundry managable for me (besides having the kids trained to do their own laundry by the time they’re nine) is to put in a full load every morning as part of my rountine. It’s nice to not even have to think about it. Otherwise it would be too easy for the laundry monster to take over!
I also just do a bin of the kids’ clothes; a bin of ours, and so on….
but, I don’t find I can get stains out if I use cold water, and having two busy boys, almost Everything I put in the laundry has to be treated for stains.
I also have to do extra loads because of my younger son’s wetting accidents. The only thing I’ve found really works is a hot soak with vinegar, followed by another wash with detergent and more vinegar. Sometimes he smells like an Easter egg, but it beats the alternative!
For all of you that hate to fold – DON”T. We hung a shower curtain rod in our laundry room. Items that go on hangers go from dryer to hanger to rod, and then to the appropriate closet. Saves a ton of time and re-handling of the clothes!
I read in Real Simple magazine a year or so ago to simplify your laundry, put a hamper in each bedroom and you don’t have to go searching for dirty clothes, just collect the hampers and bring them to your laundry room. This is ridiculous to me….I tell my kids and hubs to put their dirty clothes in the laundry room – much simpler than collecting 3 or 4 hampers. Also tell my kids that if their laundry isn’t in the laundry room, it won’t get washed. Period. I refuse to go thru their rooms looking for dirty clothes. The kids (ages 7 and 4) do pretty well with this. The older one complains every now and then that something didn’t get washed, and I just remind that it’s her responsibility to get it in the proper place, and no, the proper place is not under her bed 🙂
So am I the only person who puts a load in the washer & forgets it for 3 or 4 days & then has to re-wash it?!?!? I usually remember when I need something out of iot & it smells all nasty, so it gets rewashed along with a few shakes of baking soda!
Shirley, with certain items/stains, sometimes you have to use a product similar in chemical nature in order to remove the stain or break it up. For instance, there is a soap store here in my town that makes their own natural soaps the old fashioned way. She has one for people that do mechanical work that is made with a small amount of some sort of solvent, like gasoline or kerosene (I can’t remember which). It’s one of the best ways to get the grease stains off of hands. (I believe you can use it on grease and oil in your clothing as well but you may want to test this first.) So, a petroleum product like gasoline/kerosene will help break down the grease bonds chemically on your hands in order for the soap to work and get them clean. Her husband works construction, so this is why she made it – he could never seem to get his hands clean. I imagine owning a soap making store and having a husband with dirty, greasy looking hands is not a great selling point! I have tried it as well at home on my hands and have given it as a gift to people that work construction and such things too (my brother who likes to work on cars) and everyone seemed to like it. She has amazing items, too and I am glad she figured this one out.
You might also use dish washing liquid as it is made to help break down grease and oil from your dishes.
I worked at a dry cleaners. Read your care tags before bringing them in. Most items are washable at home. Only things I’ll bring to the cleaners is my husbands suit and winter wool coats. I’d bring in anything that is silk too but I don’t own any. Everything else that is delicate is washed in washer on hand-wash cycle with cold water and hang dried. Even feather bedding is just washed in a large washing machine due to the chemicals used during the dry-cleaning process that stick to the feathers. It’s probably not safe to be sleeping on chemical pillows. It’s much better to wait for a hot day and wash it yourself. Making sure to plump them as they dry on the line to dry all the way. As for ironing use spray bottle to mist cotton shirts before ironing to starch. Canned spray starch can cause yellowing and it sure makes my iron all gunky and floor all slippery from over spray. (yuck just more work cleaning it up)
Great post! I don’t sort either…haven’t for years and years. With 6 children, it wastes too much time. And I’ve been washing in cold water too for years.
I use Charlie’s Soap…all natural, no perfumes or dyes. I buy it in a 5 gallon container and it last for a whole year.
I, too, feel the same way as you about doing laundry. I can never understand when people complain about it. Just press a button, put in some soap. It’s not like we have to slave all day over boiling water or carry water from a river! We have so much to be thankful for. Seeing this task (or any task) with gratitude (for the washing machine, electricity, soap ) changes even the most monotonous task into joy.
I don’t enjoy sorting laundry as much, but I use it as time to pray for each person in my family. Turns it into a good thing.
Attitude is everything!!
These last two days I’ve been so excited to get a load up on my clothesline. Hanging clothes up is such a relaxing thing for me. I’ve found starting a load first thing in the morning really helps. If I do a load a day, laundry doesn’t seem as overwhelming. And like you, folding and putting away is my least favorite part. Thanks for all your tips!
I’ve started adding about 1/2 cup washing soda (Arm & Hammer) to light colored loads. It’s very old-fashioned–you may have seen it called sal soda. Anyway, it’s not as toxic as bleach, and pretty inexpensive, and it seems to get clothes cleaner. I never bother with dryer sheets, but we don’t have much synthetic fibre clothing. I had a clothesline in the backyard last year (had to move, sadly), and I loved it. Hanging clothes never felt like a chore to me, and they smell so good when they dry.
I have had great luck using Dawn Direct Foam (dish soap) and a toothbrush to get out oily stains or stubborn stains. BEWARE, it is super concentrated and a little goes a long way. If you use too much you will have to do an extra rinse 🙂
Try shampoo or dish soap to get those grease stains out. It has worked for me.
Loved your post! I don’t sort by color either and wash everything in cold. Been dreaming of a clothes line…maybe this is the summer! Enjoyed your style of writing…it made me smile a few times! 🙂
I would recommend the fold down clothes racks. You can use them indoors in the winter and I can get a whole load of laundry on two of them.
Some great ideas here!
We add a half cup of vinegar to each wash load (Costco, less than $4/2 gal) so we don’t need to use fabric softener. Two dryer balls take care of most static, but I do add a half sheet if the load has a lot of acrylic or nylon, etc. I try to wash one load per day so it’s not a big deal.
I don’t sort, either. We have a basket for dirty whites, a basket for colors, and one basket in kiddo’s room. No lids – just wad up the dirties and lob them in for two points. I hide my delicates (inc. cottons) from well-meaning but clueless hubby so I can wash on cold & line dry. Whites get washed in hot; everything else is in warm. I can attest to the sun being great for getting out stains — kept many a cloth diaper & wrap from being gross.
Milwaukie has hard water. Would love it if anyone has tips for getting out grease/cooking oil spots, many of which hide until *after* they’ve been through the dryer no matter how I try to pre-treat. Short of soaking a load all night… 🙂
Dawn dish soap!! My hubby always manages to get grease stains on his shirts. Which unfortunately necessitates a second trip through the washer, but dawn will take the grease stain out every time!
Simple green…best price Home Depot for a big bottle. Got this tip from a mechanic’s wife 🙂
I disagree with the not sorting because cold water or not the clothes grey. I can always tell when someone doesn’t sort their laundry. But sorting can be a family friendly event. I taught my daughter the trick and she had it mastered by the age of 2. We use the pop up hampers. I have them in 5 colors; white, yellow, green, red & navy. White basket is for the bleach load, yellows for light color, green for medium color, red for reds & pinks & navy for dark clothes. I keep a small open plastic basket for wet washcloths or towels. If an item of clothing needs attention it can be hung over the side or dealt with immediately depending on what it needs.
When a basket fills I wash that load. It’s a very simple system and extremely easy for the family. Everyone sorts their own clothes right into the hampers. The pop up hampers are light weight and perfect if you have to carry your laundry up and down stairs or to the laundry mat. We even use them on long road trips. But on the road we go with a dark and lights method of cleaning to keep it simple.
I fully agree with the laundry being taken care of from our bedroom we do the same thing. And the folding and the putting away is the most tedious. The other trick we have is to not use a laundry basket. It’s too easy to ignore a clean load if it’s sitting in a laundry basket. On our bed it HAS to be dealt with before we get in it.
When you sort you will notice a huge difference in your clothing. And it doesn’t have to be a difficult task. With the little kids it’s all about color matching. And what preschooler doesn’t like playing matching games. I always hear that the clothes look brand new when we resell them.
I will say that not all pop up hampers are created equally. Pay a little more and get the heavier duty ones. They will last years over the cheaper ones.
As for the white load another little tip is keep those dirty socks away from your white towels. We strictly use white towels & wash cloths. After years with dingy hand towels I discovered this trick. The sock dirt discolors the water and that is what your towels are soaking in. Keep them separate and your towels will be whiter & brighter. We go with white because I got tired of the sour towels. White can easily be bleached. Bleach loads are also good for your front loader washers. It keeps them from have mildew issues.
I use the same sorters with different colors, Red bag Red clothes……
The only one I have issues with not getting it in the correct bag is my husband. Gotta love him
I use a 3-bag hamper system I bought at Target. Delicates/dress shirts in the first bag (things that dry quickly and need to be pulled out so they don’t wrinkle – I hate ironing!), other clothes in the second bag, and bleach load in the third bag. When the bag is full, I do that load. It’s just the right amount for one load. If I have something that bleeds red or that has special needs, I hang it on the edge of the bleach load. It’s obvious it’s not supposed to be bleached, so it’s not confusing. Towels don’t generally go in the hamper, they just get pulled out of the bathroom once every week or two.
When I do the delicate load, I try to pay attention so that I don’t have wrinkles. Regular clothes in warm (it really does clean better), towels and sheets in hot.
The” sort as you load the hamper” thing really works for us. I even have my husband trained. 🙂
I sort based on who wears it – my clothes, hubby’s clothes, the kids’ clothes, and then towels/bedding. Cold water wash the clothes, hot water wash the bedding/towels. My MIL lives with us right now and she sorts by color and fabric and who knows what – I can do 4 loads in the time it takes her to do 1.
Dryer balls are great, I find they help things dry faster and keep some items from clumping together.
Detergent – use half of what is recommended. Agitation cleans, not the detergent. Don’t overload your washer or dryer in order to gain the most efficiency.
Pretreat – 24 hours max or the stuff may leave a NEW stain. If it sits longer than that let the item sit in water before washing.
Kids clothes and stains – presoak overnight with water and detergent in the machine. It works and I don’t know why.
Stains – use the sun as bleach. Cloth diapering parents swear by it and it works for other items too.
thanks for sharing your dirty laundry with us!!
I usually do all of my laundry on Sunday, but I think I will try to spread it out like you suggest. I did recently come up with an idea that has saved me SO MUCH TIME. I purchased a little zip-up garment laundry bag for everyone in the family (the ones that are for delicates). I attached a ribbon so that I could hang them next to each hamper. My family throws their dirty socks and underwear in them. I simply zip them up, throw them all in together, and viola! Now I don’t have to distinguish the socks between my 1 and 3 year olds, and my husband (if he manages to adhere to the system) has an easier and more efficient way to get things done. I LOVE THIS NEW SYSTEM!
I heart my laundry line. And, when it is too cold or wet outside to hang dry the clothes, we hang them on hangers inside the house. Yes, it looks like a laundry jungle for one day/week, but our energy costs are down for two reasons: 1) I’m not running the dryer (except for undies and towels…no one likes crunchy undies…) 2) The wet clothes raise the humidity in the home, raising the perceived temperature…so I can turn the thermostat down. 🙂 Even in Vancouver, WA you can line dry all year long. 🙂
yeah Vancouver! I miss my hometown 🙁
wow. i had no idea it cost that much per load either. and we have an older machine. i will also be happily hanging clothes this summer. Thank your obsessive husband for that bit of info 🙂
What kind of detergent do you use to get kid clothes clean on cold? I have trouble with food and dirt stains on kid clothes with Tide, my standby, with cold water. Stains that will come out on hot won’t come out on cold.
I wash my kids clothes on cold using Era. I buy it on Amazon but sometimes can find it at Walmart. I love this detergent and it’s great for getting out stains.
I don’t sort clothes anymore either- makes my mom crazy- but I’ve never had a problem and I dod LOTS of laundry with 6 people in our family.
$.75 a load in just operational costs??? that is enough to convince me!! Going to find something to hang dry my clean clothes on right now!