Washing Scheduled

Do you spend a part of your morning picking up washing from different parts of the house? How close to the laundry basket does the dirty washing get?

Last year I introduced small washing baskets into each bedroom, as well as the ones already in the bathrooms and for the most part the dirty clothes make it in. I must admit the favourite spot for most of the dirty clothes is next to the washing basket.

Colour coded

The other small change I implemented is different colour baskets to help me sort all the washing at once. I bought these mesh baskets; they are easily folded away and stored in a cupboard between use. They were cheap and I bought 2 a month until I had the colours I wanted.

I then created a schedule. I only have one child in uniform, so as you can imagine we have a lot of laundry each day. If you have nursery school children or younger, you will also have a fortune of washing to do.

On Schedule

I created a schedule for the washing to be done, this mostly ensures that the most important clothing items are washed first.  This helps especially when it rains for days.

I have 4 children plus my husband and myself, with a smallish washing machine. Unfortunately my beautiful large Speed Queen died after 25 years of dedicated service and because of its age there are no longer spare parts. I have a really good machine now but it is small and we do around 3 loads of washing per day.

Here is my schedule:

Monday – whites/lights, blacks and hand washing

Tuesday – blue/ greens, brown and reds/orange

Wednesday-  Linen ( there are 5 beds, this takes the whole day)

Thursday – Towels and table cloths.

For the most part this schedule works well. Obviously there are colours and patterned clothing that you have to decide where they fit in,

I have an ironing lady who comes 1 full day and 1 ½ day each week, I do my first load of laundry at around 6 am, all three loads are then done by 8 when I need to leave for work.

Put it away

I have spoken to a few ladies who do not have help and one of their main issues is not getting the clean laundry to where it belongs.  This is another system that you need to then put into place. How to get the clean clothes back where they belong? Depending on the age of your children you can possibly get them to put their own stuff into their cupboards.

This would only work well with some of my family members, my husband, my eldest daughter, who is an organiser by nature, and my youngest and my son, who would get it to the cupboard but not sort it. My middle child has server ADHD and depending on what happens between where she collects the washing and her bedroom will dictate where the washing ends up. If it makes it to her bedroom she will also get it into the cupboard but not sorted.

Getting it fixed

Another aspect of laundry is repair. Lost buttons, torn pockets and seams. Create a small repair kit to help with mending or a space to put the clothes into so that they can be taken to be repaired.

Another handy tip I learned is to have a singles basket. This is for the socks that have lost their partners, every few months go through the basket and see if you can find matches.