So, I've seen a lot of questions lately on some Facebook large family groups that I belong to about how to handle the laundry. Yes, when you have a larger family, you have a larger mountain of laundry. I've not had much trouble with it I guess. We try to organize it and keep it going several times a day; at least 4 to 5 loads. And sometimes 6 or more if bedding is involved. With it being such a huge chore, one person is assigned that chore and that is it for them. (Except for personal things of course). And with mom helping out when it is needed.
We have two bathrooms with a large laundry basket in each one. When it gets full, it gets sorted in the laundry room.
In our laundry room we have some shelves that my handy husband made. :) On the top shelf from left to right are whites, reds and oranges, then pinks and yellows. The color of basket indicates which color or similar color goes in each one. (With the exception of towels). The second row is blacks, denim jeans and skirts, then towels. The bottom row is two baskets for blues, greens, browns, purples, tans, grays, teal, etc.
When one of these baskets are full it's time for a wash cycle. (These are rarely empty lol). The table is for folding and stacking the boys clothes...hence the basket of clean laundry on the table. The girls clothes, mine, hubby's, and the baby's go on the washer and dryer in the front-bottom of the picture (also see the next picture for a better view). We put them away as soon as possible to keep the surfaces clutter free. Not that it is always done, but that's our goal. :)
To keep this mound of laundry under control we have one washer and two dryers. Long ago (when I only had 4 or 5 children and my mountain started growing) I would have to wait for a dryer load to finish before I could put another load in to dry. It was frustrating when I needed to get several loads done in one day. So I started looking for a second dryer. A few years ago I was finally blessed to get one and we kept two ever since. It is a life saver. The cycle of a washer is shorter than a dryer and we can get two loads done in the time it took to do one before.
You may have noticed a rod across the way in front of the shelves. That is to hang up the hanging clothes so they can be taken directly into the rooms. I also keep some of the boys church clothes in here permanently so they will not get tossed to the bedroom floor and messed up before Sundays. It also keeps the empty hangers ready.
The white basket on the floor under the bottom shelf is for older ragged towels we use for spills and cleaning. The other white basket partially under the table is for swimwear. In the second picture you can see part of a brown wicker basket; that is for stray socks. And it seems full most of the time, lol.
The empty space on the top shelf to the right of the pink basket is for clean towels to be folded and ready for use. As you can see at the time I took this picture it was empty. I'm guessing they were either hanging up in the bathrooms or in the dryers. They get a lot of use. :)
And that's our mountain climbing aka laundry. :)
P.S. That is our second refrigerator on the left in that last picture. We have two full size, one in our camper, and a small chest freezer. They all get plenty of use.
Until next time...
JenT
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