Laundry: the chore that never ends!

[Happywife]

How many people are in your family? 11

Do you have pets? Gerbils

How many loads do you do a week/day? 2-3/day

What type of washer and/or dryer do you have? Whirlpool duet

What (if anything) has helped you cut back the number of loads? My washer has helped, b/c I rarely need to rewash anything. I try, to have everyone wear outfits twice, sweaters if not dirty longer, etc…

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When I first got married I would have died thinking of doing laundry for eleven people. What’s changed is that it’s just grown on me. I used to hate laundry, now I like seeing my family in clean clothes, as opposed to little boys in dirty ones!

The Lord stretches us gently over time. I used to also hate doing dishes, until I had a new sil, and she Loved doing dishes, so much so that she didn’t use her dishwasher, as she enjoyed the process of washing/drying. That got me thinking, that as long as I have to do this all of the time anyway, I might as well learn to enjoy it.

(((((((((((((((((((((((hugs)))))))))))))))))))))))))))

This painting of the Polish Madonna has always inspired me:

 

[Truly_Beloved]

How many people are in your family?

Five, but one is in-utero.

Do you have pets?

Nope.

How many loads do you do a week/day?

It is usually necessary to do one load per day, and that’s not counting when I did cloth diapering. What really ends up happening is, I don’t do a load a day, so I have to double- or triple-up on a single day and do two or three loads.

What type of washer and/or dryer do you have?

Front loaders.

What (if anything) has helped you cut back the number of loads?

What I’ve found most helpful for me is not cutting back on the number of loads, but cutting down on the size of each load, which means we have less stuff to wash. The more clothing we have, the longer we can go without doing laundry, and then the more we have to do later. We only have 6 bath towels and that load gets done twice a week, but it’s smaller and more manageable, so it gets done faster, instead of just sitting in the dryer (like what happened when we had a dozen towels ) because it took forever to fold and refold all those towels. (I say “refold” because inevitably, I have to temporarily leave my post at the couch folding towels to attend to some minor kid-emergency, to discover upon my return that my youngest toddler has had the time of his life creating a mountain of clean towels on the floor.)

So, for us, the smaller the load/less we have, the more manageable the chore is, and we’re not as likely to get overwhelmed. Same with dishes, too. We want to cut down on the number of dishes/silverware we have, so that the chore becomes more manageable.

 

[leonie]

It seems like all I do is laundry. Daily. If I manage to not have laundry one day, then I have plenty to fold from previous days. We only have the two of us and the dogs. I can’t imagine what its going to be like with kids. Am I doing something wrong? Tell me about the laundry situation at your house.

How many people are in your family?

Do you have pets?

How many loads do you do a week/day?

What type of washer and/or dryer do you have?

What (if anything) has helped you cut back the number of loads?

We have 9 people in our family.

We do not have pets. But, we do have some livestock.

We do about 15 loads of laundry a week. I use to do more like 20 before we got the bigger washing machine.

We now have a front loader and a high capacity dryer.

Cutting back on number of loads: nothing really. My older daughter usually does her own laundry because she doesn’t like to wait for me to do it.

The front loader has helped. I can do 2X as much in one load.

During my last pregnancy (baby is now almost one), my dh took over a lot of laundry duties. It’s been great. :thumbsup:Also, we went three years without a dryer and it was a serious pain. In fact, he’s working out of town 5 of 7 days a week for the next month and I need to get back into the habit of doing laundry. ug.

 

[prolifewife]

Thanks so much for the great tips everyone! :hug3:

Am I the only one who has extra laundry due to pets? I’m always washing bedding, furniture covers, doggie blankets, our clothes (seem to only be able to wear them once due to the dog hair…sometimes more than once.) They don’t even get ON the furniture or beds. We do have one very furry dog but STILL. It’s like I do laundry for two kids instead of two dogs.

 

[ac_claire]

Right now there’s only me in the household (and one in-utero). My husband is living overseas in England at the moment. No pets. I do 2-3 loads a week.

I love doing laundry though, always have. It’s great; you throw a bunch of dirty clothes with soap into the washe/dryer, hit a few buttons and at the end you get an armful of the same clothes but now they’re bright, clean, fluffy and warm. I find it very satisfying, almost relaxing.

 

[CatholicSam]

What I’ve found most helpful for me is not cutting back on the number of loads, but cutting down on the size of each load, which means we have less stuff to wash. The more clothing we have, the longer we can go without doing laundry, and then the more we have to do later. We only have 6 bath towels and that load gets done twice a week, but it’s smaller and more manageable, so it gets done faster, instead of just sitting in the dryer (like what happened when we had a dozen towels ) because it took forever to fold and refold all those towels. **(I say “refold” because inevitably, I have to temporarily leave my post at the couch folding towels to attend to some minor kid-emergency, to discover upon my return that my youngest toddler has had the time of his life creating a mountain of clean towels on the floor.) **
So, for us, the smaller the load/less we have, the more manageable the chore is, and we’re not as likely to get overwhelmed. Same with dishes, too. We want to cut down on the number of dishes/silverware we have, so that the chore becomes more manageable.

Couldn’t agree more, and I feel your pain on the “refolding”. Folding the laundry is the weakest link for me. My towels have been known to languish in various stages of refolding for a couple of days at a time. Hmmm, I’m actually surprised looking around now to not see any towels around. But that’s only because I haven’t done today’s laundry yet.

How many people are in your family? 11

Rebecca, your family is beautiful! 9 kids under 12, WOW! I’ve got a third of that under a half of that (3 under 6) and it’s crazy. Fun but crazy!

 

[CatholicSam]

Oh, I forgot to write what I originally hopped on this thread to write (and then got side tracked with the other posts ). Prolifewife, what solution did you find to your broken dryer in the end? Were you able to get it repaired? Hope so!

 

[CarrieH]

Am I the only one who has extra laundry due to pets? I’m always washing bedding, furniture covers, doggie blankets, our clothes (seem to only be able to wear them once due to the dog hair…sometimes more than once.) They don’t even get ON the furniture or beds. We do have one very furry dog but STILL. It’s like I do laundry for two kids instead of two dogs.

Nope, you’re not the only one. I have extra laundry because of the cats, esp. the bedding. It’s not so bad now that my elderly cat has left this world – toward the end, he was always barfing, and I finally had to put him down shortly before his 16th birthday. But every now and then one of the current cats will eat something that doesn’t agree with them or have a hairball, and for some reason they like to barf on the bed or on the rugs rather than on the bare floor (no carpeting, it’s all hardwood and linoleum here). So I have to wash the rugs and the bedspread more often than I would otherwise. I also wash my dark clothes more than I would without the cats, just to get the cat-hairs out – my orange/white fellow sheds a LOT even when I brush him every day. I was going through a lot of lint-rollers until I discovered that duct tape works better for this purpose, and it’s a lot cheaper!

 

[Gwyn]

We are a family of 5 and have developed survival secrets.

1. Huge front loading washer. Pricey, but helpful. If money is tight, skip the matching dryer and get a regular 7 CF dryer. No drop in performance and half the price!
2. Towels get used for a week! You need enough towel bars to spread them out so they dry quickly and don’t get musty.
3. Bed sheets go 2 weeks. Shuttup, they go longer in Europe…
4. Pants, sweaters and sweatshirts are washed only when visually or olfactorily needed (i.e. look/sniff test). ALWAYS wear a teeshirt under the sweater/sweatshirt to make this work.
5. PJ’s are good for a week. Store under pillow by day.

Obey the above and cut your work in half at least.

I work along the same lines…towels washed once a week, sheets every 2 weeks, unless …Jeans are used 2-3 times before washing. my PJs are used twice before washing. DS and DH do not follow the same…but I think I run a load almost every other day and on weekends 3-4… we do have front loading washer dryer and that is much easier…
what I do hate - at our previous home the laundry room was in the basement (lugging baskets 2 floors is no fun). This house laundry room is off the kitchen (lugging clothes up and down is no fun). Next home, our laundry room must be beside the bedrooms (that is where the clothes are…

 

[gardenswithkids]

I dislike thread titles that remind me of the chores I am avoiding…

 

[leonie]

I dislike thread titles that remind me of the chores I am avoiding…

I also avoiding. I’m wearing my nice slacks because I’m out of jeans and sweats.

Hey, that’s right! CAF is supposed to be my temporary escape!

 

[Truly_Beloved]

I also avoiding. I’m wearing my nice slacks because I’m out of jeans and sweats.

I have soooo totally done this, too!!!

 

[CB_Catholic]

Well, we’ve only touched on the really (to me) unpleasant part of doing laundry–IRONING! It’s like the proverbial elephant in the living room. I avoid as much as possible by removing things from the dryer and folding them right away, but the stuff that needs ironed just sits in the basket, and I pull it out when I want to wear it and press it off. I am really lazy about it, and can think of a thousand things I’s rather do, like play on the computer. It’s worse in the summer, with all the cottons, even though I hang the clothes outside.

My son actually irons his stuff (and his wife’s) the minute they come out of the dryer. He washes, dries, folds, and irons and puts away his and his wife’s clothes in one session. I can’t believe I raised him

Is anyone else as bad about ironing as I am? I’d rather clean the toilet.

 

[Truly_Beloved]

Is anyone else as bad about ironing as I am? I’d rather clean the toilet.

We received an iron (and board) as a wedding gift, and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve used it. Got married back in 2003…

We’re bad – If we buy something that ends up wrinkling really bad (even if brought immediately out of the dryer), we donate it at the next opportunity; otherwise, it hangs in the closet unworn.

 

[CarrieH]

We received an iron (and board) as a wedding gift, and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve used it. Got married back in 2003…

My ironing board is standing here in the home office, piled with papers that need to be sorted. Some of those papers are documents from the third quarter of 2009.