03/04/2010
Filed In: Housekeeping & Cleaning
Who hates laundry? I do! I’m just going to be blunt here. I really hate doing laundry. In turn, my laundry miraculously piles up. If only my husband adored doing laundry. Sigh. Alas, he doesn’t…
Therefore, I need a system. I need a system to do it right the first time. Why do laundry right you ask? Well, the reason for that falls into my “I’m incredibly cheap but like to call it ‘frugal’” category. I don’t want to have to buy perfectly good clothes over and over again. So the better I take care of my (and for that matter my husband’s) clothes, the less I have to replace. Of course, I love buying new clothes, but when you have clothes that you just LOVE; the ones you just don’t ever want to part with; you just have to take care of them to make them last.
is the closest I could find.
Each of them is the perfect size for 1-2 loads of laundry; so once the basket’s full, you can just throw a load in. Also, it’s a good idea to wash your clothes in smaller loads because they get cleaner that way – they can swoosh around more. So, the small hamper idea works on oh so many levels.
These hampers are really cute and since we don’t have the space in our closet, I just put them out in our bedroom, next to our armoire. I might change this later though because I’m not entirely thrilled with it, but for now it works. So I have three hampers in my bedroom and I intend on getting a fourth hamper for the laundry room (to throw towels, sheets, and miscellaneous in). For now the towels just go on the ground.
So on laundry day I first of all do whatever hamper is full. If it’s not full, I don’t do it until it is. Basically I just do laundry as needed instead of always doing it on a certain day. When it comes to the brights and darks, I can do them all as one load. However, if there is a lot of a certain color (for example a lot of reds/pinks or a lot of blacks) then I will split those out and do only those. This isn’t entirely necessary but it keeps colors looking their freshest and darks looking their darkest.
When it comes to the lights, however, I ALWAYS split them up into whites and mostly whites with light greys. Here’s the story behind that. I first of all want to keep my whites super white, so in the upcoming steps I’ll be using some laundry boosters that really only work well with all whites. It can fade other colors (I learned this the hard way). I also use this particular laundry booster because we have a huge problem with rust in our water. We are on a well and our well just so happens to run through an iron belt. Horray for us, right?
Okay, well, finally, if you split up the loads (in particular the lights) and don’t have enough of a certain load (for instance I’ll sometimes have way more all whites than light greys) then simply throw back the items you don’t have a lot of. The next time around it’ll add up to enough and you can throw them in the laundry then.
So that’s all for the sorting. I’m not done though! No, no, not at all. Obviously there’s much more to doing laundry than sorting; so in some upcoming posts I’ll be going over a couple other tactics I like to do when tackling the laundry. Stay tuned.
Therefore, I need a system. I need a system to do it right the first time. Why do laundry right you ask? Well, the reason for that falls into my “I’m incredibly cheap but like to call it ‘frugal’” category. I don’t want to have to buy perfectly good clothes over and over again. So the better I take care of my (and for that matter my husband’s) clothes, the less I have to replace. Of course, I love buying new clothes, but when you have clothes that you just LOVE; the ones you just don’t ever want to part with; you just have to take care of them to make them last.
What you’ll need
All you’ll need for now is some hampers – 3-4 will do it. I bought my so called “hampers” from the basket section at Joann Fabrics on super sale. They weren’t considered hampers though (by the store that is) because they’re too small. However, this size is absolutely perfect for keeping laundry from piling up. I tried finding them on the Joann Fabrics website for you, but I couldn’t so this hamper is the closest I could find.
Each of them is the perfect size for 1-2 loads of laundry; so once the basket’s full, you can just throw a load in. Also, it’s a good idea to wash your clothes in smaller loads because they get cleaner that way – they can swoosh around more. So, the small hamper idea works on oh so many levels.
These hampers are really cute and since we don’t have the space in our closet, I just put them out in our bedroom, next to our armoire. I might change this later though because I’m not entirely thrilled with it, but for now it works. So I have three hampers in my bedroom and I intend on getting a fourth hamper for the laundry room (to throw towels, sheets, and miscellaneous in). For now the towels just go on the ground.
How I divide the hampers…
I divide the hampers into the three basic color categories – brights, lights, and darks. However, this isn’t the only sorting. This is just to pre-sort everything. In the brights goes the reds, bright blues, bright yellows, oranges, greens, etc. – you get the idea. The lights have whites, mostly whites (whites with some patterns), and light greys. Dark greys, blacks, dark blues, and all other darks go into the darks hamper.Laundry day…
When laundry day comes around it’s time to sort again. I know, it sounds tedious; but really it’s not – I swear. Believe me, if I can get into this routine, then absolutely anyone can.So on laundry day I first of all do whatever hamper is full. If it’s not full, I don’t do it until it is. Basically I just do laundry as needed instead of always doing it on a certain day. When it comes to the brights and darks, I can do them all as one load. However, if there is a lot of a certain color (for example a lot of reds/pinks or a lot of blacks) then I will split those out and do only those. This isn’t entirely necessary but it keeps colors looking their freshest and darks looking their darkest.
When it comes to the lights, however, I ALWAYS split them up into whites and mostly whites with light greys. Here’s the story behind that. I first of all want to keep my whites super white, so in the upcoming steps I’ll be using some laundry boosters that really only work well with all whites. It can fade other colors (I learned this the hard way). I also use this particular laundry booster because we have a huge problem with rust in our water. We are on a well and our well just so happens to run through an iron belt. Horray for us, right?
Okay, well, finally, if you split up the loads (in particular the lights) and don’t have enough of a certain load (for instance I’ll sometimes have way more all whites than light greys) then simply throw back the items you don’t have a lot of. The next time around it’ll add up to enough and you can throw them in the laundry then.
So that’s all for the sorting. I’m not done though! No, no, not at all. Obviously there’s much more to doing laundry than sorting; so in some upcoming posts I’ll be going over a couple other tactics I like to do when tackling the laundry. Stay tuned.
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