Top 5 Laundry Room Tips – Save Your Sanity in the Laundry Room!

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Today I’m here to share my top 5 laundry room tips.  I hope these 5 laundry room tips will help you add more time back into your day and maybe have you not looking at laundry like it’s the worst household task out there.

Want to know a not so secret secret about me?  I don’t hate doing laundry.  In fact, it is probably the last household task I would willingly give up.  I know, crazy right?  I have always taken pride in my family looking nice, I actually like ironing, I like the challenge of getting a stain out.  I just like doing laundry…way more than dishes or cleaning the bathroom.

I came up with these 5 laundry room tips because as a mom of 7 I think it’s safe to say I’ve done my fair share of laundry.  When I say my fair share lets do the math, 7 kids + 2 adults = 9…9 pairs of pants, 9 shirts, 9 pairs of underwear, 9 pairs of socks…that’s 36 items in one day if there are no layers and that doesn’t include towels, bedding, or anything else.  That’s 252 clothing items per week.  Yep, I’ve done my fair share of laundry over the last 22+ years.  I promise if there is something to help cut down on my time in the laundry room I’ve tried it.

Thankfully some of these 5 laundry room tips I learned early on and they have saved my sanity more than a time or two.  Some of them I have learned after a lot of trial and error.  I’m sharing the 5 laundry room tips that have made a huge difference in how much time I spend in the laundry room.

Tip 1. Do all of each person’s laundry in one single day.  This tip has been a life saver for us for a couple different reasons.  We don’t have a bunch of laundry in our laundry room which was something that always made me feel overwhelmed.  We all have hampers in our bedrooms and as long as everyone gets their laundry done on their day they don’t get over filled.

Another reason I really like this routine is that it eliminates the “Where is my shirt that matches this skirt?” type situations.  Back when we had 7 younger children and they all had outfits more than just clothes there were few things more frustrating than not being able to put an outfit together because half of it wasn’t clean.

Right now in our home this routine looks something like this:
Monday – Mom and Dad laundry
Tuesday – Lila laundry
Wednesday – Boy laundry
Thursday – Anna laundry
Friday – Mia laundry
Saturday – Towels/bedding (Usually it’s just bedding as I can get through a load or two of towels while the older girls, who do their own laundry are at school.)
Sunday – only emergency laundry

This may seem like I’m doing a lot of laundry all week long but really I feel like I have things done in no time.  For the boys we usually have a load of lights/white, darks, and jeans.  If I’m on top of things their laundry can easily be done by noon and it is all done for the week.
Some of us girls have delicates we need washed.  Luckily our washer has a hand wash setting that is perfect for all those special wash items.  I can still get our laundry done in about the same amount of time by washing jeans first since they often take a little longer to dry (for the ones we dry in the dryer).  While they’re in the dryer I can do a hand wash cycle AND a load of darks because we hang dry/dry flat the delicates.

Tip 2.  Grab some totes and get off season clothes out of the bedroom and the laundry room!  Raise your hand if you have a family member who is known for trying on 20 things before deciding what they’re actually going to wear for the day and half of those clean discarded clothes end up in the dirty clothes hamper.  If this isn’t your biggest pet peeve you’re a much nicer person than I am because it makes me absolutely insane.  When the kids were young…okay strike that, I have always had a cute clothes obsession er….addiction.  Because of my love of cute clothes at all stages, to keep the closets and drawers from overflowing we started putting off season clothes in totes into the storage room (or the top or bottom of their own closets if they had space) and it turned out to be one of the best things we could have done.  We have continued doing this twice a year every year and Nate and I even do it.  It keeps the kids from trying to wear shorts when it’s 20 degrees outside and then throwing them into the dirty clothes when I tell them they can’t, thus cutting down on laundry!

Tip 3.  To help lengthen the life of your clothes, line dry when possible.  I mentioned above that we hang dry or lay flat to dry our delicate clothing.  During the summer months I use a clothesline to dry the majority of our clothes.  Living in Utah where it’s hot and dry in the summer the clothes dry on the line so quickly the first items are often dry before the last item is hung.  With a family of 9 this tip has helped lengthen the life of not only our clothes but also the life of our dryer.  Another added bonus of using a clothesline in the hot summer months is below in tip 4.

Tip 4.  Did you know when it comes to stain removal sunlight is your best friend?  Our need for extreme stain removal has decreased as the children have grown but food spills and grass stains are still part of our daily lives.  Direct sunlight has successfully removed blood, grass stains, about ever baby stain you’ll encounter (poop – yep, spit up – sure, formula – yes, baby food – you bet), ketchup, spaghetti sauce, the list goes on.  I have only had 2 stains beat direct sunlight, ground in chocolate and actual mud.

I always do my best to address stains as soon as I see them.  I have always been a fan of good old blue Dawn Dish Soap and Spray ‘n Wash.  I like both of these because I can put them on the stain right away even if they don’t make it into the wash for a couple of days.  While I wouldn’t let them sit indefinitely I’ve never had a problem with adding them to a stain and having them sit for a few days.

The great thing about direct sunlight though is if you happen to notice a stain after it’s been through the washer and it’s an “organic” stain you can just lay it out in the direct sunlight and watch it disappear as the item dries.  I also love how hanging clothes in direct sunlight will often take care of dinginess and a stain I may have missed.

Tip 5.  Keep a basket/box/tote in your laundry room to toss items into that you’re ready to get rid of.  Whether it has a set in stain you just can’t get out, a hole, is too small, or as you washed it maybe you just realized you don’t want to see it again.  Don’t take the chance of those items ending up back in your laundry room making you crazy, take the plunge and get them out of the cycle.

I hope my top 5 laundry room tips will help you get time back in your life and maybe help you not dread walking into the laundry room.

If you have any laundry room tips/tricks to share I would love for you to share them in the comments.

Looking for more laundry room tips?  Check out these posts.
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Freshen old towels and make them smell fresh and new again.

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