Laundry Baskets-helpful tool or hindrance?

Unclutterer ForumsLiving SpacesClothing Closets

Laundry Baskets-helpful tool or hindrance?

(108 posts) (44 voices)

Started 4 months ago by momwalker1966
Latest reply from bandicoot
RSS feed for this topic

Overall Rating: votes

Tags:

« Previous 1…345 6 Next »

Another Deb
Member

I have two organizing fetishes: bagging my own groceries and hanging out laundry. Neither is especially productive, I just get great satisfaction out of doing those two tasks. Unpacking the bags or putting the clothes away, not even close. In Arizona the clothes dry quite fast on the line but I do laundry after work and don't hang them out at night, so into the dryer it is.

I keep three laundry baskets, which fit neatly side by side in the closet under DH's shirt hangers. Whites, darks, colors. They are white plastic, tall, and in big marker letters I have them labeled. I found a neat clothes rack that folds into itself when I am not using it.
http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&sugexp=lttmoc&cp=22&gs_id=2k&xhr=t&q=folding+laundry+hanger&gs_upl=&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&biw=1600&bih=745&wrapid=tljp1327167609028037&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=6211294588852673371&sa=X&ei=ffgaT_PgL8KYiAK-yMSZCA&sqi=2&ved=0CIMBEPMCMAI# When the laundry comes out of the dryer, I try to hang it as I retrieve it from the dryer.

DH has no desire to have folded underclothes, so it is super easy to sort and place the shorts, white T-shirts and socks and toss them in a drawer. Hard for me to believe but he really does not care about that. He's basically happy that a laundry fairy comes and makes the clothes somehow reappear in a drawer when he needs them.

Posted 4 months ago #
pkilmain
Member

Another Deb - my DH is the same. He likes his socks matched, everything else just goes in a drawer, though to be fair, they go in three small drawers: t-shirts, shorts and hankies, socks.

Posted 4 months ago #
momwalker1966
Member

Thanks for all the input. I have loved reading all the different ways everyone does their laundry. Since I started this thread, definitely have been abusing the use of my laundry baskets. I am still clearing out misc baskets around my house. Until I read through this thread I have NEVER heard of putting clean clothes on the bed(which is always made), but that is what I have been doing and it has made all the difference in the world. The whole family has enjoyed the fact that there is clean socks in the drawer---I had 2 large baskets with just socks that I had not matched up. I am also trying to stay more focused on the laundry. Just adding it to too many multitasking steps and not considering ONE whole project seemed to make it low on my mental list of "things to get done" so I was stopping short of actually putting things away. The statement of "well, atleast they are all clean" is something now I hopefully get away from.

I hope someone else that may have a problem of getting that final step of putting away the laundry well get something out of this thread too. Thanks again everyone.....off to empty out another laundry basket.

Posted 4 months ago #
lucy1965
Member

Yay, this thread's still going!

To get to the laundry room, one goes down a narrow, twisty set of stairs; a laundry basket doesn't fit unless it's held at an odd angle (which makes descent even more dangerous), so I gave up and started hauling the clothing in an Ikea "bag for life".

There is a folding cloth hamper in our bedroom; it's emptied when full and the contents sorted downstairs into a three-compartment cloth hamper (delicates, shirts and trousers, sheets and body towels). Kitchen/cleaning cloths are dried on a small wooden towel rod above the sink, then taken downstairs and washed separately.

Delicates are dried on a big wooden rack I bought years ago at Ikea; I hang laundry outdoors whenever possible (two retractable lines that cross the back patio), but during the snowy months everything else goes into the dryer.

Everything comes back upstairs the same way, is folded on the dining room table and put away immediately.

Posted 4 months ago #
poodle
Member

I LOVE my laundry baskets and holder. My utility room is outside (my house is older), so the only load that I can carry in one trip to the washer (and after being dried back into the house) is the sheets. My spare bedroom is a mish-mash of stuff (I randomly go through it and clean out and re-organize - it's on my list to do in the next few weeks). I have a 3-in-one laundry holder for colors, whites and towels. The laundry baskets stack inside themselves next to it. When a section gets full, I fill a basket for washing. Usually they all get full at the same time. The only thing: I have a habit of leaving folded clothes/towels in the baskets and pushing them to the side and living out of those until the laundry holder is full again. I don't mind washing/drying/folding. But there's something about putting away that bores me. But, I'm getting better.

Posted 4 months ago #
Jennifer
Member

I have been awful at putting laundry away also. I will wash and dry all day long with no complaint, but putting it all away? Ick. However, this is a bad habit I am working on! Cleaning and organizing the closet, as well as downsizing the wardrobe helped a lot.

My laundry is off the kitchen, all on one floor so no stairs to the washer for the first time ever in my life, and I love it. I use the dryer a ton, living in soggy Oregon. Summer is dry, but dusty, so hanging outside doesn't work well then either.

Posted 4 months ago #
lottielot
Member

Lol, I love laundry chat! After all, I spend an hour or so a day on it...
Momwalker: can you get your kids to put their own laundry away? My boys have tiny laundry baskets next to their doors and I chuck their stuff in there (literally!) and they have to put it away. Makes a world of difference :) Now if I could only get ds1 to ever actually pick his dirty clothes off the floor and put them somewhere where they may actually get washed.

Posted 4 months ago #
momwalker1966
Member

lottielot My kids are getting better but considering that they are in their early 20's-----(rolling eyes, with a sigh of embarrassment) Teach your children young everyone. They are doing their own laundry now that the laundry room has been de-cluttered and organized to where they can actually get to and do it themselves. For years I just done all the laundry myself-it was just easier at the time. But they are now getting a crash course. Now is better than never I guess.

Posted 4 months ago #
Lori Paximadis
Member

What @momwalker said. When my mom went back to work when I was about age 8, I became responsible for doing the family's laundry. I was responsible for folding my own clothes and putting them away long before that. I think the reason that laundry is such a complete no-brainer non-chore for me now is that I've always done it. It's no more out of the ordinary and taxing than getting up to get a snack when I'm hungry. Even in the days when I didn't have laundry on premises, going to the laundromat seemed more like having an hour and a half to myself to read my book than having to go do that dreadful chore.

Then again, I'm weird.

Posted 4 months ago #
chacha1
Member

We are all weird, in our own, special ways. :-)

Laundromat: to me, the 7th circle of hell.

Posted 4 months ago #
irishbell
Member

I've always had lots of laundry baskets, I couldn't function without them!
I don't always fold directly out of the dryer, (unless permanent press) or take the clean unfolded laundry and put it on my bed. I usually am doing laundry in between something else, so folding may have to wait a few hours.
But always that same day. And then put away/in the kids rooms for them to put away.

Posted 4 months ago #
MTNgirl
Member

I have been reading this thread since it started. I have been living in a small condo since mid-November. I have all but one of my laundry baskets in storage and I feel crippled! They are so handy, I will be happy to have them back when we move into our new house.

Posted 4 months ago #
Rosa
Member

Momwalker, I'm so glad that's been better for you!

My mom always used the laundry as a control over what we could wear - if she didn't approve of something, she didn't wash it. So we did our own laundry pretty early (middle school?).

My little boy is still not strong enough to open drawers on most of our bureaus, so we got him a little sliding-plastic-bin bureau from Ikea - I fold stuff but he seems to just stuff it in there any which way, but it's just jeans, t-shirts, socks, underwear, and "other" (long johns, pajamas, hoodies). So it doesn't really matter. We'll see if he ever has a fashion phase, his dad is still dressing like it's 1994 (jeans, t-shirt, flannel.)

Posted 4 months ago #
snosie
Member

Lori, I hear you - you're not weird!

Posted 4 months ago #
djk
Member

I enjoy doing laundry, at least I did until our washer bit the dust and now we are hauling everything to the laundromat. That's taken a whack of pleasure out of the routine!

Fortunately our new one will be delivered in a couple of weeks and believe me, I will love not going to the laundromat.

We've a hamper in the bathroom where the washer is so we don't need baskets to transport laundry. The 2 that came with the place are stacked and hold all of our cleaning supplies, as there is nowhere else to keep them. They live in the shower stall. First person to shower hauls out the baskets and places them on the bathroom floor, last person plops the basket back in the shower and closes the curtain. I use one to empty the wet wash into before hanging it on the drying rack which lives in the bathroom.

ETA
as for putting things away when they're dry, I hang everything like with like according to where the go in the closet. So all of DH's underwear is hung in one section, mine in another, DH's white t-shirts hang together, coloured together, socks are matched directly when wet and all go on my Ikea "Socktopus". So whenever I go into the bathroom I bring out one category of dry things and put them in their home. Of course I am constantly in and out of the bathroom so things get routinely put away by category.
Jeans, dress shirts/blouses, towels and bedding get hung up on hangers to dry around the flat and over every available door and
curtain rod, so the impetus is strong to get those put away asap. These hours are when the doorbell is certain to ring:(

Posted 3 months ago #
snosie
Member

momwalker, I just read this article (and it made me proud to be aussie!): http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/australia-164421

I suppose it started with the clothes line, so that's why I thought of you, but it's interesting in many ways, especially as we all come from so many different places!!

Posted 3 months ago #
Ella
Member

Today after posting on the March goals thread about my laundry piles in the hallway, I re-read this thread for ideas. Putting away clean laundry has never been my problem, but having a dedicated space for dirty laundry in this tiny studio is another story. When I moved here, my old wicker basket was damaged beyond repair. Even though 'new hamper' has been on my wish-list ever since, I've been making do by filling up paper grocery bags and using them to tote the laundry to the basement washer and dryer. Unfortunately, the bags are not rip-proof and sometimes my clean laundry has tumbled out on the floor during the trek back upstairs. :(

When I cleaned out my closet in January, I vowed: no more bags of dirty laundry stuffed inside the closet. The stupid solution has been to put the bags in the hallway where (I hoped) that tripping over them would inspire me to do the laundry more often and keep the hall clear. But clutter begets clutter. Instead, the hallway has become the mid-station where all manner of messy stuff accumulates.

Today I bought a good-sized rectangular wicker hamper with hinged lid, handles, and a removable white cotton liner. The hamper exactly fits inside my closet under the hanging blouses. It's light enough to carry even when full of laundry. I plan to toss dirty clothes in the hamper without the liner, then put in the liner for transporting the clean dry clothes upstairs. I hope this works!

Posted 2 months ago #
Ella
Member

I'm on the 5th load of laundry now. The new basket/hamper is working splendidly to tote the loads to and fro. :)

Posted 2 months ago #
susanintexas
Member

Well done, Ella! Sounds like the ideal solution.

Posted 2 months ago #
lottielot
Member

Sounds like a good system! Now, can anyone tell me how to stop dh from chucking all his dirty washing on the floor of the upstairs bathroom? I provided a laundry bag which hangs on a hook on the door, but apparently that is too much effort to use :( I only go up there about once a week tops, give it a quick clean and end up lugging a mountain of laundry down, either having to put it all in the bag just for transportation or carrying it and dropping socks everywhere! There's no room for a basket.

Posted 2 months ago #

« Previous 1…345 6 Next »

Reply »

You must log in to post. If you do not already have an account, you can register here.