Tuesday, January 7, 2014

A brief post on the amount of clothes and Laundry routine

A friend posted the question on a group- How do you tame the laundry monster? This has been a work in progress for us. I think we may have found the current solution for us, for now, in this house, with kids these ages. :)
Our home is one level with the laundry room next to the kitchen. The kids share a small room and we don't store their clothes in their room. This helps not only with laundry, but also with keep in their room tidy! Bless my surrogate Aunt Sooze, who gave us this idea when we moved into our current home.
Our laundry room is large enough that we have the space to fit the kids clothes. The kids "dressers" fit nicely. They aren't true dressers, but metals baskets from Ikea.

The kids each get 3 drawers, and then they share a drawer for socks and a drawer for underwear (each drawer has a divider for their items) They have 8 outfits and 2 dressey dresses (I have all girls) I do keep extras not in their drawers. Since we have extra clothes from hand-me-downs and I don't want to respend the money on it when we need it later, and also not clutter up the laundry room, I keep the extra clothes (that we love and are in good shape)  in the attic. I works out well since the attic is just above the laundry room and it's a quick grab if I need it in a hurry. We do one load of laundry daily. We wash on cold unless there's a need for hot( extreme dirt, or bathrooms issues). When we did cloth diapers, we did a load of diapers every other day and one laod daily depending on what stage of toddler we had. Sometimes depending on the kiddo we had to do 2 loads a day. Then everyone folds the one load and puts away. Because the kids drawers are right near the dryer, putting them away is a cinch for all ages. We also have three laundry baskets that sit on shelves for moms clothes, dad;s clothes and linens. So it's super easy to sort the clothes out of the dryer.
On Monday we do laundry catch up- all the church clothes and towels and sheets, and anything that hasn't been washed since Fri. We have 2 of every type of sheet. (Mom and Dad's bed has 3 sets- one is flannel) So the beds are stripped and made immediately. Nothing like going to put to kids to bed and realizing the sheets are still damp or not even washed! That has put a kink into a few bedtimes for us over the  years. Having two sets of sheets for every bed has helped immensely!
I'm learning about space lately. If we have about 80% of our space full- instead of 100% and clutter outside as well there's a certain peace. Drawers shut easily you can find things etc. The key is to have things in the 80% that you use and love. My kids are learning this super important life skill and learning how blessed they are to have and use and love the items they have. This has worked for us. I'm learning that ages and stages will change things up as will where you live and how your house/living space is configured. How do you handle laundry at your house?

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