Organizing The Dreaded Laundry

In this section I will be adding tips and tidbits from our readers!  Please feel free to contribute:

For laundry, in order to cut out the hours of sorting socks each week, I bought two lingerie bags for each family member's socks.  I wrote each person's name in permanent marker on the bag.  Each person is responsible for placing their own socks in their sock bag.  On laundry day, I make sure each bag is zipped up well, and throw them in the wash.  Occasionally, if the bag is not large enough, I have to run the bags through the dryer a second time- but no more sock sorting!

-Lori Aldrich
 

To help with keeping the laundry organized, I purchased 4 dishwashing tubs from Wal-Mart and painted each child's name on the front. Then coated with a clear lacquer.

Once the laundry is sorted and washed. I fold the clothes and place in their "buckets". As a chore, they are to take these buckets to their rooms and put their clothes away.

-Contributed by: Tara Bollwinkle

My husband came up with a great idea after being asked to match socks and sort underwear for our three sons.  We went to Wal-Mart and bought each child socks & underwear that were individualized.  (Meaning, one child has socks with grey soles, one child has all white socks, one child has socks with all blue lines across the toes.  One child has Fruit of the Loom underwear, one has Hanes, etc.  It has really been a good solution for us because we can tell at a glance which socks and underwear belong to whom.

Contributed by: Angie Roberts
 

I hate sorting dirty laundry. I came up with a great system that works really well for our family of 6. I bought 3 large laundry baskets with lids from Wal-Mart. One is for whites, one for light colors, and the other for darks. I have not sorted laundry in more than a year. My older children (6&4) sort their own laundry and about 50% of the time the 2 year-old is successful. This is also helpful when doing laundry. I am able to look at the basket and when it gets about 3/4 of the way full, I know that I need to wash that basket.  It is very convenient.

-Kaci Cox

For mothers of younger kids:
In our hallway we have laundry bags purchased from Target that hang from PVC pipe.  Its easy to put together and cheap.  Each person has their own bag at the community laundry dump and no more yucky clothes all over the house.  When the bag begins to fill you pull the bag off the hooks and draw string to it.  Off to the laundry room we go and with only one of seven clothes.   This has saved me more time as then you can fold and put all that child's clothes away and not have to sort through massive plies of dirty or clean ones.

-Shayla Rose

I was reading through your tips and tidbits from other readers regarding the laundry, especially sock sorting. I found a great product to help with this problem. It is called The Sock Sack. What is great and unique about it is while they are a mesh laundry bag, it is very high quality and has a loop sewn in the upper corner so it can be hung. My 11 year old hangs his on his closet door knob. (My son's bag is blue.)  I hang mine on the back of my closet door using the hook that came with it. It also comes with a nice embroidered label with a place to write ones name. It is offered in a variety of sizes and colors and is helpful for larger families. I sent a couple to my friend that just had a baby and she loves it.
There is also a product called The Little Sock Sack that is just the right size for little socks and baby items. I thought your readers might be interested. The website is http://thesocksack.com.

-Julie Olson

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