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Living Safely
with the Laundry
Glacier

Basics of Laundry 101

We have gone into a lot of chronically disorganized homes and found laundry, laundry, laundry everywhere. One of our jobs as a professional organizer is to help our clients solve their laundry problems.

The very first thing we have to tackle is making sure they have places to handle all the parts of doing their laundry. Now for some of you this may sound obvious, but in some houses it is not easy.

The washer and drier are in a location that does not have the ability to handle the laundry when it is done. Therefore it is spread all over the house. Clothes wrinkle when not folded or hung soon after leaving the dryer, and wrinkled clothes mean more work for our clients and more of a mess.

We try to find spare space, be it in a spare bedroom or garage, where the clothes can be taken right from the dryer so they can be hung, folded, or placed in individual laundry baskets for each member of the household to take to their rooms and put away. A lot of the solution is in taking the time to find and set up workable locations to do the job.

Pat Rabon

A to Y Organizing

Missouri City, Texas

AtoYorganizing.com

Laundry (along with paperwork) is the biggest specific complaint of housewives. It is like an avalanche that keeps coming, over which we feel we have little control. Or maybe it is more like a glacier, slow and inexorable in its buildup on a daily basis. We have some flexibility and control over food preparation or cleaning or organizing—but laundry seems to have a mind of its own.

However, we do have power beyond what we suppose if we break out of old ideas and habits and set up better systems to channel that avalanche into a manageable stream.

Perfectionism can be a hindrance in doing laundry. Many people are hung up by trying to sort just the right pieces together, making sure the wash load is full to save detergent and water for protection of the environment, and many other ideas that hinder moving forward easily and quickly. Laundry is not brain surgery. Just do it!

You will hear it again and again from those who do it without difficulty—laundry is one continuous process. The more quickly it is done from beginning to end, the better. Most folks don’t have trouble actually washing and drying the clothes because machines do most of the work. However, many people get hung up on returning clean and folded clothes to where they belong. No machine will do this. The main thing to remember is that the job is not done until the clothes are put away.

Where Are You?

Mark the spot on the line that seems to represent where you are between the two extremes:

Laundry—the Bare Bones Way

“How can you write about washing and ironing?” my husband asked. “You don’t do either.”

Bingo!

That is the heart of the Bare Bones Way—wear clean and unwrinkled clothes while working as little as possible—maximum benefit from minimum effort.

How do I do it? There are several factors. I generally buy clothes that wash easily and don’t need ironing, most of them anyway. We have a three-bin laundry hamper. My husband washes the clothes. (He has a weird system of sorting but I don’t complain.) His style is to do small loads almost daily. He hangs clothes wet on hangers (we have no electric dryer) and I put all of them, even if they need ironing, in the closet when they are dry.

He washes the whites and hangs them on the line to dry. I fold them and put them away when he brings them in.

I have one or two garments that need dry cleaning. Recently I was lured into buying cute, springy cottons that require ironing. Believe me, I learned my lesson! I now take a public vow to avoid that temptation ever again. Ironing them is a real nuisance. No more cottons that need ironing for me!

Laundry can be divided into specific steps. Work a plan for each step and the laundry problem melts like a bar of soap in a puddle.

1. Start solving problems early in the process. Buy easy-care clothes, bedclothes, and table linens. If you want to afford it, dry cleaning offers an easy way to get clothes clean, that is, if the cleaner is easily accessible. Whatever you do, think ease of care before you buy.

2. Limit clothes and linen use. Wear clothes as many times as possible between washings. People often drop worn but unsoiled clothes in the laundry hamper rather than deal with what to do with once-worn clothes. One suggestion is to put these lightly worn clothes carefully into a discreetly placed slush pile to be used at the first occasion in the future. Some people hang them in a special place in the closet. Still others turn the coat hanger hooks in the backward direction and return them to the closet among their clean clothes. (I hear some of you perfectionists gasp at this point.) These last folks keep an eye (and nose) out for soil problems in this process.

Towels can be big offenders when it comes to over-washing. It is easy to fall into the habit of using too many. Some families limit themselves to one towel and washcloth per person per week. Sometimes, this needs modifying. But always there needs to be a reasonable limitation or you will turn into a slave to washing, folding, and putting away towels.

The average length of time people use their sheets between washings is two weeks. The people who seem to be most satisfied with their sheet washing plan are those who strip the bed, wash, dry, and return those same sheets to the bed the same day. That way they don’t have to fold or store an extra pair of sheets.

3. Develop a system. Most people have a basic approach for washing that works for their water type and lifestyle. They have a few products and basic settings on the washer and dryer that are their stock-in-trade. For the most part, using this approach works pretty well. The problem comes in the timing of the steps—laundry backing up because it is done too seldom or sporadically. The best thing is to get a system, such as the one described here that was followed by one particular family.

Each day the wife puts laundry in to wash before she leaves for work. She includes softeners to avoid wrinkles. Her husband puts them into the dryer when he comes home before she does. She arrives in time to get them out before they wrinkle. She folds and hangs them, putting each person’s clothes on a hanger or in a dishpan with the person’s name on it in the laundry room. She puts away her clothes and the folded linens, and the job for the day is done. Family members retrieve and put away their own clothes.

Obviously, this plan is specific to this family, but it could work for you, or your plan may be entirely different as are the following:

• Janet washes only three loads a week for herself and her husband. Two loads are clothes and one is linens. For her, laundry is a nonproblem. She washes and dry-cleans her “good” clothes as seldom as possible, lightly wearing them ten or fifteen times before they need attention. “See this jacket,” she asked, flapping the collar of what she was wearing. “It has never been cleaned and I have worn it many times.” She hand washes rayon clothes, which call for dry cleaning, wraps them in a towel to absorb the excess water, fluffs out the wrinkles in the dryer, and hangs them damp to finish drying. They seldom need any ironing.
• Karen and her husband have five children. She pays one child to do all the laundry. The dried laundry is placed in a basket and a block with a family member’s name is placed in the basket on a rotating basis. It’s this person’s job to fold the laundry. If the laundry is not folded before dinner by the person whose name is on the block, he or she does it the next time as well.
• Lucy has trained her two boys to do their own laundry, and she takes care of the rest.
• Ramona takes her clothes to a local laundry, which will do the washing and drying for her. She figures it costs about five dollars more a week and saves her a couple of hours. She likes the tradeoff, and besides, they fold more neatly than she does.

The varieties of plans are myriad. The worst approach is no plan, washing only when the hampers overflow and nobody has any underwear left to wear. Often, using this plan, wash is sorted into Mount Washmores all over the floor waiting to be done. Later, the huge piles of dried (and wrinkling) laundry sit on the sofa or in baskets waiting for a marathon folding session, which is usually slow in coming. The job is mammoth. The mess is too and so is the resistance to doing such a huge job.

4. Hang unironed clothes in the closet and put unironed linens on the shelf where they belong. Iron clothes as needed or at a designated ironing time.

5. Do laundry without emotion. Become a robot and just follow your plan mechanically.

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In the Trenches with Smart Homemakers

From Sandra J.:
I keep only one hamper in the bedroom—it is relatively small, so it holds only 2–3 days of soiled clothes (for the two of us). I take the hamper to the laundry room, and as I pull the clothes out I sort them into a triple bag laundry sorter. As each section of the sorter becomes full, I do that load (whites, mixed, black, etc). For me it means a load every day, which I wash before dinner and dry after dinner.

Every item goes on a hanger as it comes out of the dryer (we have a wooden dowel mounted below a shelf next to the dryer) or into a basket to go into the drawers (one basket for his and one for mine). He (hubby) takes his basket and hangers to the bedroom. I have arranged the wash schedule so that his work clothes are done on Thursday, so that Sunday night there isn’t a scramble at midnight to get his black socks done! Not anymore.

Towels have their own hamper in the bathroom. When towels or sheets come out of the dryer, they are piled in a chair in the LR for me to fold while watching TV. Fortunately, our linen closet is in the hall next to LR so it’s a short walk to finish the job. I usually do towels and sheets on the weekend, because I can start a load before we go out for recreation and it doesn’t matter if they sit in the washer or dryer all day. Don’t get me wrong, I still have to work hard against my natural tendencies, but at least I have a plan to attempt to follow; and it works most of the time. Hope these ideas help someone.

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Tips

• “Dry-clean only” on a garment tag means you have no recourse but to take it to the cleaners. A tag that says “Dry-clean” may possibly be washed by hand. Some say it is best to dry-clean a garment once to set the dyes before you start hand washing it.
• Attach a small magnetic basket to the side of the washing machine for items found in pockets.
• If you do laundry for the family, refuse to wash unpaired socks. Insist that everyone pin each pair together with sturdy safety pins or those little plastic circles into which some sock pairs will slip. If they aren’t paired, you won’t wash them. Now no more pairing—big annoyance saver. Another good idea is to color code socks. Buy a different color band or sock for each individual and let him or her match.
• Time your washing machine’s cycle. This will help you plan your washing schedule. If your washing machine is located in the basement, utility room, or away from the main part of the house where you can’t hear it finish, set a kitchen timer to remind you to move the laundry along.
• Hang clothes directly from the dryer while they are still a little bit damp so wrinkles will not set in. Use a timer to alert you to when the dryer is finished or near finished. As you know, clothes that remain crumpled in the dryer come out wrinkled.
• As already suggested, use a dirty clothes hamper divided into two or three sections. That way you sort for washing as you put clothes in the proper place in the hamper. This avoids one of the areas of clutter in housekeeping—piles of sorted clothes on the floor, waiting their turn in the wash. Separate the whites, lights, and darks or sort in some other way that makes sense to you. If you can’t find a three-in-one hamper in your locality, look at the catalog resources in the back of this book for a variety of divided hampers.

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IN THE TRENCHES WITH SMART HOMEMAKERS

Years ago, I bought one of those laundry baskets that has three bins. It’s been the best investment I ever made. When one of the sections (lights, darks, reds) reaches the top, it’s a load, no matter what day it is! The kids (6 and 10) sort their own laundry, and I toss the baby’s in there too. We keep another hamper in the bathroom for whites (socks and underwear) so that I can bleach them.

• An oft overlooked issue with laundry is that people buy clothes rather than wash them. (“I’m out of underwear? Why, I think I’ll buy another package!”) One secret of streamlined laundry care is to own only the amount of clothes you really need and keep on top of washing them.
• Another hidden hindrance in moving laundry forward is that there is no room in the closets or drawers for the clean clothes and linens. The laundry hamper and baskets have become the solution to an overflow-storage problem. Uh-uh! Big mistake! Own only what you have room to store when nothing is in the laundry.
• Follow the advice of Don Aslett, America’s number one cleaning guru, who says he doesn’t want to gross us out but he wears work clothes for a week not just a day. I am trying to figure out exactly how this works, but the lesson is clear. Wear gently worn clothes again rather than putting them in a laundry hamper. Train kids carefully in this. Left on their own they find it easier to toss clothes in the hamper than to fold or hang them for future use.

From Patty:
We have four kids—three teenagers—so towels were our big issue. We have a tiny, humid bathroom, so hanging six wet towels in there every day was causing a mildew problem. No one’s towel would be dry for their shower the next day . . . icky! In desperation I came up with a plan. To my surprise, it solved the laundry problem as well!

I cut each bath towel into four hand-towel sized pieces, and then serged the edges. I started with twelve bath towels. Ten towels were chopped, and I saved two as guest towels, so company wouldn’t freak out. Now I have two guest towels and forty bath towels! For exactly two days my kids complained about drying off with their little towels. Then they noticed that their little towel was dry the next day when they went to use it again, and thus much more comfortable to dry off with. Also, we never run out of clean towels any longer! The big surprise was on laundry day. Rather than washing damp, smelly towels every 2–3 days, I now throw in one small load of towels once a week. I’m in 7th heaven!

• If you don’t own a serger, or you don’t want to chop towels, you could do one of several things. Either barter with a friend who does sew to do something for her in exchange for her sewing expertise, or simply buy some tiny towels. I liked this idea so much that I decided to stock my camper with little towels. I found a huge, inexpensive bundle of white, square hand towels in the automotive department at Sam’s Club. Now we have the towel problem licked both at home and on the road!

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Ironing—the Bare Bones Way

The secret to the ironing problem can be summed up in one word—don’t! Wherever possible, buy clothes made of double knit or other wrinkle-free material and either hang them wet to dry on the hanger or get them quickly out of the dryer and hang or fold before they wrinkle.

Use fabric softener in the wash water or dryer to further encourage smooth drying. Other dewrinkle products are available in spray form and encourage wet clothes to shed wrinkles as they dry. Here in south Florida, one can hope the industrial strength humidity will naturally steam out wrinkles, and I suppose it does to some degree. Of course, you can always use a handheld steamer that dewrinkles clothes but does not leave them crisp.

Avoiding ironing is not always possible. When it must be done, more and more the custom is becoming for individuals to iron their own clothes pretty much as they need them. Train your children to do their own as soon as they are able. Sometimes one person, usually Mom, will schedule an hour or half hour of ironing to coincide with a favorite TV program to ease the boredom.

I learned two things when I was forced to iron my cute spring cottons:

• Don’t try to do the job perfectly, attending to every seam in detail. Just “mash the wrinkles out” as my family used to say. (I can feel the shudders of perfectionists around the country. I hope they don’t all do it at once and cause an earth tremor.)
• Printed material does not show wrinkles as much as solid material. The wrinkles somehow become hidden in the pattern—somewhat.

If you are still using the clunkers you bought years ago, buy a good quality iron and ironing board. Make sure both the board and the iron are stored where they are easily accessible, unless you are blessed with a laundry room where they can be left set up. The board must be light and open and close easily. Nothing discourages ironing like grappling with a heavy, rebellious ironing board! You will resist getting it out until you have an emergency and, worse yet, you won’t want to put it back when you are finished. Prepare to succeed.

Tips

• Avoid ironing baskets. They are black holes often used as overflow for too full closets and drawers. Keep all unironed items folded or hung where they would be placed if they were ironed. Discard old items if you don’t have room to store your unironed things.
• When you sprinkle items to be ironed, do so with warm water. Roll them up and let them sit while the moisture spreads evenly throughout. If you can’t iron them right away, stick them in the refrigerator but don’t leave them for several days or something really funny happens to them that is hard to correct. Again, I speak from experience here.
• Hand pressing is wiping the wrinkles out with your hand. You will be surprised at how effective hand pressing can be on things like pillowcases, slips, and the like.
• Don’t overload the dryer. Things will be less wrinkled if it is only about a third full.
• To prevent a fire, vacuum the lint out of your dryer exhaust once a year or so. This is one of those stitches in time that will save nine stitches of firefighting and cleanup—definitely a Bare Bones tradeoff.

Decision Time—Choose Your Top 20 Percent

Keep your choices simple. One or two significant ones are all that are necessary.

1. What physical change can you make in your setup that will improve getting your laundry done? Can you buy new equipment, move something, get rid of something?
2. What new action can you initiate to improve how laundry flows from dirty to clean, from the laundry basket to your closets and drawers? Can you train helpers, wash more often, fold and put away immediately, do something else?

Make it specific:

1. I will make this physical change:
2. I will make this action change: