What's Your Laundry Routine?

Posted by Sandy Beverly February 17, 2009 at 3:56 p.m.

There are probably as many laundry routines as there are households. Who does the laundry in your house? How many loads do you do a week? All at once or spread throughout the week? Where do you store your dirty laundry? When and where do you fold the clean stuff? What shapes your laundry routine--convenience, desire for efficiency, something else? Where does laundry rank on the list of household chores--tolerable or one of the most dreaded? Any funny laundry mistakes to share? Give us the scoop, but keep it "clean". Imagine your mother or your five-year-old daughter is reading this.

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tangential_reasoners_anonymous (anonymous) says…

Same as shampoo... wash, rinse, repent....

( waitaminute... that would be Sundays )
February 17, 2009 at 4:32 p.m.
justbegintowrite (Ronda Miller) says…

We are all on our own when it comes to our laundry...My son does his, my daughter does hers. Occasionally one of us will ask the other to put laundry into the dryer (or hang outside) if we have to zip away.

As far as laundry mistakes...who hasn't had a lot of pink tee-shirts or underwear when that red towel mistakenly gets tossed in....

Teaching each person to do their own laundry duties may have been the best ( and I believe only) chore I instilled early on in my children. They love helping when they are little...sorting by colors and shapes and sizes teaches a heck of a lot of math! ;)
February 17, 2009 at 4:39 p.m.
bevy (anonymous) says…

Here's my laundry routine:
1. Walk into the laundry room.
2. View the piles of unwashed laundry, and the piles of clean but un-folded laundry.
3. Put in the clothes my kids or I need for tomorrow and retire quickly.
4. Cry softly to myself.
February 17, 2009 at 4:46 p.m.
bevy (anonymous) says…

Mom told me something that made me feel better. She said "Bev, I've been doing laundry for 30 years and I've never finished it yet. Stop stressing about it."
So I did. Most of the time.
February 17, 2009 at 5 p.m.
femail (Linda Hanney) says…

Sandy, it's been a while since the kids were home, but here was my routine. I had clothes baskets on a laundry room table. When clothes came in off the line or out of the dryer, I would sort by person into the baskets. Usually, I would fold my husbands & mine, but the kids were on their own. They could either dig in the baskets or fold their own.
February 17, 2009 at 8:06 p.m.
RETICENT_IRREVERENT (Ronaldo Ignacio) says…

Drop my clothes on the floor when I take them off.
Magically, they later appear folded in the closet.

I used to use a laundry service.
But I had to bag, drop off, and then pick up, clean, pressed and folded.
They would even press boxers!
The boxers are not pressed now, but oh well.
February 17, 2009 at 8:26 p.m.
liggyon (David Lignell) says…

I try to do laundry, but my passive-aggressive approach doesn't always fly with my spouse. For example, I can do whites with beach and fabric softener. I just, sometimes, forget to put it on hot. Or I confuse lights with colors and bleed the darks into the lights. I suppose it could be a gender excuse for getting out of doing loads, but I really don't think so. I'm just slow when it comes to washing my own clothing. Now, let's talk about ironing. I'm a pro, and fast, too. Also, I can sew my own buttons and darn my socks. It's just the frickin' laundry that has me puzzled. I guess I'll just buy a lot of those blankets with holes and wear them around the house.
February 17, 2009 at 9:18 p.m.
alm77 (anonymous) says…

Everyday, all day. Family of five. I do it, my husband does it. Nobody wants to put it away. SO, my latest trick has been to dump the clean clothes on my bed so that they have to be put away before we can go to sleep at night.

Our laundry room isn't a room at all but a closet in the garage with a washer and dryer so, if we want to be able to walk in the garage, we can't let the clothes get out of control.

Also, each of us only have probably 4-5 pairs of pants, that keeps things in check, too. The less clothing you have, the more frequently you have wash. When I buy new clothes, I also try to take an equal amount out of my closet to the Goodwill. I'm not perfect at it, but we do fairly well.
February 17, 2009 at 9:37 p.m.
alm77 (anonymous) says…

OH, and I just discovered lavender scented detergent and dryer sheets. That makes doing laundry kind of nice!
February 17, 2009 at 9:38 p.m.
The_Original_Bob (anonymous) says…

I've never had an issue with laundry. The hamper gets full, I wait a few days, the hamper gets fuller, I throw the clothes, colorblindly, into the wash, wait till that is done, wait a few hours, chuck them into the dryer, wait a few hours, and then fold or redry the clothes to get the wrinkles out. Sometimes, just for fun, I dry the clothes first and then wash them. Olympic amounts of fun, but it takes forever for the clothes to dry in the washer. And they kind of stink, but changing up the rotation brings joy to my life.

In short, laundry is easy, but taking the same approach to dishes causes marital issues.
February 17, 2009 at 9:46 p.m.
sgb (Sandy Beverly) says…

You people make me laugh! Plus, I got a couple good ideas. Thanks for both. More?
February 17, 2009 at 10:04 p.m.
RETICENT_IRREVERENT (Ronaldo Ignacio) says…

T_O_B,
Dish sanitation is important.
Did you know that the engine/tire cleaner power wash setting at the car wash is just ""the cat's pajamas"" for baked on messes?
No scrubbing involved.
But as important as clean dishes are, cooking is more important.
Maybe it's a trust issue, but ptomaine poisoning is my biggest fear.
And so, I only trust myself.
Besides, thats what they make paper plates for...
February 17, 2009 at 10:18 p.m.
gccs14r (anonymous) says…

When there were five of us in the house, my dad did a lot of the laundry and he sorted not just white and everything else, but rather sorted by color. There was enough laundry that he could do a load of red, or yellow, or green, etc. Every once in awhile he would do an empty load, just to wash the washing machine. There were no color bleeding accidents when he did laundry, but there was once an incident with a wool hat and hot water. It was still a hat, but went from adult to toddler size.
February 18, 2009 at 12:39 a.m.
lily (anonymous) says…

Bevy hit close to home with me as did her mom.
I don't think I'll ever finish. My laundry room is half the basement. I try to do 1 or 2 loads a night. No one else does it although my 12 year old helped a lot when I had surgery. My husband is purposely worthless in the laundry department. I'll ever see the end of the laundry and I do it for 5. Two dogs who to have control over my husband seem to help contribute to the amount of laundry. Now I can't hang the laundry out because those white sheets/clothes manage to get dirt all over them as the dogs love to have those wet clothes rub all over them when they walk through. I try to fold in the basement on my favorite tv night. It's my time.
February 18, 2009 at 10:05 a.m.
xbusguy (chris Ogle) says…

I moved my washer/dryer, and closet close to the shower. White towels, white t-shirts, white socks. One color for socks takes care of the runners who seem to just leave without notice.

TV on top of fridge... close to the beer.

Being single isn't all that bad.
February 18, 2009 at 10:25 a.m.
mom_of_three (anonymous) says…

I used to do laundry weekly, but then the kids learned to do their own, as they wanted to wear their favorite jeans more than once a week. I love the fact they do their own, and the rest of us will add in if there is room. The rule is to fold what you take out of the drier, but sometimes that doesn't happen. Right now, there is a big pile of clean laundry on top of the dryer, and still lots to be done.
When the kids were little, and I did all the laundry, I used to do it on the weekends. worked pretty well for a while. Then they grow.....
February 18, 2009 at 10:45 a.m.
average (anonymous) says…

10-15 minutes at the clothesline before work, on a nice day, is my moment of zen. Sometimes I'll put NPR or my MP3 player in my pocket. More often, just me, the birds, and the occasional train. Yeah, I have a dryer (I use it some in the winter). Yeah, hanging a load of clothes only saves me 30 or 40 cents on the electric bill. But, I really like doing it.

I've never understood why the clothesline is the television totem of poverty. Give a poor family in a barrio a catalog of 100 modern marvels and an energy budget, and I'd think the tumble dryer would come in at #90 or below, every time.
February 18, 2009 at 11:20 a.m.
KSChick1 (anonymous) says…

Most. Boring. Blog. Ever.
February 18, 2009 at 12:47 p.m.
autie (anonymous) says…

I'm with R_I on this one. I take off dirty clothes and the next day they magically appear again, clean..on a hanger or in the drawer as the case may be. I think it must be the underpants gnomes.
February 18, 2009 at 4:43 p.m.
justmesis (anonymous) says…

I do the laundry as it needs to be done. There are only the two of us now. I put the load in the dryer, unless it is done in the morning before I go to work. Then my husband is told to put the load of laundry in the dryer. It is also his job to fold. He folds and puts away his and folds mine and leaves on the bed for me to put away. Occasionally when I am sick or way to busy, he will throw a load in. We have had many talks about this. He is under no circumstance to touch my clothes! He may do his clothes and towels as needed.
I also taught my children to do their own laundry or to at least help out. We live in the country and have well water so usually they didn't do just their own clothes unless they did have a whole load. They, or I, would ask if anyone else had something that needed washed and then add it to the load.
I learned rather quickly, after moving to Virginia, that "wash" doesn't have an " R " in it.
February 19, 2009 at 7:53 a.m.
lily (anonymous) says…

It doesn't have an "r" ? :) I grew up thinking it did.
My folks grew up during the depression and I was a later in life baby. I can remember on my Dad's day off, he and Mom would be in the basement filling the wringer washer and two tubs with water. I was fascinated. Still have them but don't use them. That's how I first learned sorting. Whites, lights, darker, darkest. Getting blue jeans through that wringer was a fine art. Scared me to death when it popped off. Ahh, the memories of time spent together.
February 19, 2009 at 12:01 p.m.