Having a large family comes with the assumptions from others that I must be a slave to the laundry. Actually, laundry is NOT my nemesis. It doesn’t overrun my house, and I actually don’t mind doing it. I have even trained my four and six year old daughters how to do it and they love helping out with this chore. Many people assume that my washing machine and dryer must constantly be running to keep up with all the dirty laundry, and wonder how I manage this chore in our home with such a large family.
I wish I had some magical formula or solution to help every mother tackle the laundry monster, but really, I don’t. But, I can share with you what we do in our home, and maybe you can garner some ideas for yours.
I don’t do laundry everyday. I do laundry about every other day, and usually just one load on the days I do. That’s about 3-4 loads of laundry a week for our family of 9 – I think that’s pretty good.
I think one of the biggest factors of only doing 4 loads per week with such a large family is the size of our machines. When we moved into our house last fall, we bought the largest washer and dryer on the market. We had thought of getting two of each machine, but we didn’t have the space to accommodate that. Another factor is that when we don’t leave the house, we usually stay in our pajamas – yes, we are one of those homeschooling families that likes to school in our jammies – therefore, creating less dirty laundry.
Here is our cozy laundry room. It is on the second floor of our home, which sometimes makes laundry a little more convenient as far as carrying loads of laundry goes.
This rack is in a little niche across from the laundry basket shelf. All of the dirty clothes go in the hanging bags. The kids are really good at putting their dirty clothes where they go, however, occassionally I will have to do a dirty clothes round-up from the bedrooms. We also have a dirty clothes hamper in our master closet; when that gets full, I take it to the laundry room and that’s usually when I do one of my loads for the week. I also use the rack to hang clothes that I don’t want to get wrinkled – I will put them in the dryer for about 15-20 minutes and then take out anything that needs hanging. I don’t have set days that I do laundry, I don’t iron, and I don’t sort clothes before washing (my mom thinks I’m weird).
It’s not a perfect system, but it works pretty well for us. Do I have days, or even weeks when laundry is spilling out the laundry room door? You bet. Are there days when I have kids come to me and say they don’t have any clean underwear? I sure do. But I give myself grace, just as God does, when I get a little behind in the laundry, or any chore for that matter. The little people that wear those clothes and the time you spend with them is far more important than piles of dirty laundry. It is also essential that your laundry appliances are in perfect condition to avoid dirty clothes from piling up. Hire a trusted washing machine or dryer repair expert if your appliances does not spin, turn on/off, or produce unusual sound.
That’s pretty much it. Maybe I’ve given you some ideas to help you streamline the laundry process, or maybe not. But hopefully I have at least satisfied some inquiring minds. Do you have any laundry tips or tricks to share? Please do in the comments.
I don’t sort my laundry either. I do one load a day for our family of four though. Sounds like we need to work on having less dirty clothes!
Your laundry room is beautiful!!It is Pinterworthy!! I love your system and the use of baskets. I thought it a laugh that your mom thought all the clean clothse were dirty and wahsed them. Bless her!! Thanks for linking up over at WholeHearted Home.
Thanks Judith! I didn’t have the heart to tell her that she washed all the clean clothes!!
Thanks for hosting the link-up!
Wow, this is absolutely awesome. I do more as a family of four — one reason is because of the cloth diapers and the other is I put everything in the dirty laundry :/ — your system would be my dream — the sorting and having kids fold their own is awesome!! Thanks for the inspiration 🙂
I taught my 2 daughters to do laundry. So, they are in charge of their own laundry as well as 2 of their brothers’ laundry. I do hubby’s and my laundry and the baby’s. We attepmt to do laundry once a week. . .our “problem” is that we start it on Friday’s and it usually isn’t all complete until Monday or Tuesday.
I like that your laundry room is on the 2nd floor. How convenient!!
Love your laundry room! I do laundry randomly…I’ve yet to find a system that I ‘love’.
~Katie
http://www.simplefoody.org
Great post. I taught my kids to do their own laundry from age 5 on, as soon as we got a front-loader that is. They are such great help!
Great system! I’ve always wanted large machines, but we’ve only ever had used machines that were given to us – so I end up doing 3 loads a DAY (and that’s with severely restricting the clothing we have). I love your laundry shelves, very cool!! Thanks for linking this up!!
We have similar laundry routines. The only differences are that my husband is the main laundry person in our house* (Lucky me!) and he usually does all of it in one day. But, yes, just because you have a larger family (we have 5 kids) doesn’t mean you HAVE to create piles and piles of laundry round the clock. If it’s still clean after wearing, it goes back into rotation, not into the hamper!
*I’m an excellent chief folder and put-er away-er though. 🙂
I have FINALLY found a system that works well for me after 10 years of marriage 🙂 Of course as we add more children to the family I may have to change it, but I won’t worry about that until the time (hopefully) comes!
We are a family of 5 and I do laundry every 5 days. I set a weekly cleaning schedule for myself:
Day 1-Laundry
Day 2-Kitchen
Day 3-Bathroom
Day 4-Floors
Day 5-Surfaces
I don’t like putting clothes away. At. All. So I sort them into piles that make it easier for me to get them away. I will wash light folds, light hang up, dark folds, dark hang up (usually 2 loads of these), and towels/sheets. It is working out great!
Now if I can just match up those socks every time…
If I didn’t have to stain treat, I think I could make such a system work. Right now, my kids’ clothing tends to need stain treating by hand. maybe b/c I used Charlie’s Soap instead of a main stream laundry detergent? Not sure…
Yes! Stain treating takes so much time! It would be so much easier if I could just dump baskets into the washing machine. I don’t want the poor last girl in the clothing rotation to have all stained clothes though!
I have to share my laundry room with my elderly mom (she lives with us). That means I can’t leave baskets lying around because she can’t navigate very well. I love how you stacked the baskets on those shelves.
Loved that your mom washed dirty clothes, lol! Once I had my niece watch our two kids. I had sorted out the laundry earlier and just left it in separate piles on the basement floor as we rushed out of the house.
I came home to neatly folded piles of dirty laundry, lol! She and the kids had folded it to “help” me, bless their hearts! I often wondered if my niece wondered why the “clean” laundry was lying on the floor, haha.
Thanks so much for linking up to the “Making Your Home Sing Monday” linky party today! 🙂
Visiting from the Mommy Monday. I’d love for you to share your family-friendly crafts and ideas at Monday Kid Corner at thejennyevolution.com. See you at the party!
Jennifer
I love this! I’m always looking for ideas to make our laundry days easier. But I share the laundry room with the mud room, and the sewing room, etc. So it makes it a little harder to have multiple baskets sitting around.
I’m going to pin this and also feature it on the Shoe Lace Linkup tomorrow! Thanks for the great ideas.
Love it, Sarah! I am envious of how little laundry you do, though. I do at least one load a day (usually 2) and we have the same size families. Hmmmmm. Maybe we need to stay in our pj’s. 🙂 I featured this on the link-up this week.
I have major laundry room envy right now. And am totally thinking that my obsession with getting all of the laundry done each week is very over-rated!
It’s wonderful to find a system that works – good for you!
There are only 7 now in our household and we make almost twice as much laundry as you. How’s that?! I enjoyed your tips and tricks – thank you!
(stopping by from the Shoe Lace Linkup)
I am also a family of 9 and I do about 2-3 loads everyday. I have a question for you. What do you do with dish rags? We handwash dishes 3x a day and use a clean rag for each washing. I have to throw these into a load I happen to be doing at the time b/c of the stink that accumulates otherwise. This happens even if I dry them in between or use bleach. Plus, we have enough littles and milk spills that the towels that clean those also must be washed asap or it gets REALLY stinky. I haven’t found anyone’s system that covers this area. I realize most people don’t have as many dirty rags b/c of dishwashers but I also have rags being used to frequently clean bathrooms and such. Would appreciate your feedback on this!
Hi Amy – for dish rags we actually use disposables ones. They can actually be reused and then tossed. These are the ones I buy – http://www.drugstore.com/clorox-handi-wipes-multi-use-reusable-cloths-heavy-duty/qxp330836?catid=184276 or these ones – http://www.drugstore.com/clorox-handi-wipes-multi-use-reusable-cloths-double-facing/qxp330833?catid=184276.
I cut them in half because I think they are too big to begin with, and then they last longer too. We use them for washing dishes and also for wiping counters and the table.
Love your system. I use one very similar; I sort clean into baskets for each person and let them put their own away. I actually found you because I was searching for a way to store all my baskets of clean laundry -like a rolling or fixed shelf of some kind. I HS one, send one to school, go to school as a librarian myself and hubby is a farmer. We have LOTS of dirty laundry, so I wash much more often. Here is something that I think helps by eliminating one step. I wash one person’s laundry all at once which means I don’t color sort OR have to sort by person. Dump Child A’s in the washer, switch to the dryer, then the whole load back into Child A’s clean basket!