OK, since I’ve been going to school full-time and working, and my mom has been out of work for a while, Mom handled most of the laundry-doing duties. Now she has found a job, so the laundry duties have to be divvied up once again. It has emerged that we have two differing philosophies on how laundry should be done.
Mom advocates piling it all up and hauling it to the laundry room and doing all five or six loads at once. Her reasoning is that it takes less time doing it that way- a half hour to wash, forty-five minutes to dry, rest of the day free.
I like to do laundry in bite-sized pieces. I put in one or two loads, then the second load or two goes into the wash while the first loads are drying. I think this approach makes more sense because I really hate the Big Folding Project at the End. I only have to spend a few minutes folding, hanging, and putting away. I can easily do other, more pleasant things while I’m waiting for the machines to finish doing their thing. Also, it leaves other washers open for other people who want to do their laundry, instead of hogging all six washers/dryers at once.
How do you handle laundry day? Do you do all your loads at once, or do you wash a load or two at a time?
I haul a huge duffel to the laundromat around the corner. Oversize machine for everything but delicates. Then I distribute the results among 2 or 3 dryers. Then I fold everything. Except the socks. Socks don’t fold.
We wash as we go along; a load or two every day or every other day. I’m like you, I don’t like folding. Breaking it up in pieces helps me cope with it.
Right after our daughter was born and we were living on our old boat, I had to do that laundramat thing. I’d go on a day and a time that wasn’t too crowded, and I’d take 4 or 5 machines in a row and do it all at once.
Now that I have a machine right off the kitchen, I tend to do it all on Saturday. If I was smart, I’d do a load a night and just keep up with it that way. But I don’t. No biggie - it’s not like I have to haul it down to the creek and beat it on a rock.
I work part-time.
I hate having laundry on the weekend, and try to get it done during the week.
I do one or two loads a day, for three people, four when older son is home from school. I too hate the Big Folding Project.
I’m actually planning to do my current batch of laundry this way. Clothes I need for work this weekend today, my scrubs that I have to wear for school tomorrow, sheets on Monday afternoon.
I just did a load and got it folded and put away, no muss, no fuss. If I’d done it my mom’s way, I would be picking clean clothes out of the pile and ironing them. My feelings toward ironing are the same as toward folding. I would rather iron an outfit each day than iron a week’s worth of laundry all at once.
I generally do a load every couple of days, as I have enough to fill the machine. (Babies generate laundry, so this isn’t hard.) I too hate flding, and ironing, and so doing things piecemeal instead of having to do all the ironing and folding and hanging and everything at nce keeps me sane.
Fortunately for me, Mr. TeaElle is very handy with laundry and more than willing to help out.
Egad. Growing up with a single mom, my family seldom had a washer and dryer until I was a senior in high school. Before that, starting at about age 10, one of my chores was laundry duty every weekend or so.
I would get dropped off at the laundromat with a pocket full of dimes and quarters, and sometimes as much as 10 huge loads of laundry. It was my job to do them all… in parallel… with that many loads, theres little idle time, and the best strategy is to stagger them slightly so that you have time to fold each load right out of the dryer as the next load is finishing so that none of them wrinkle.
I hated it. Loathing is not a powerful enough word. I dreaded and detested laundry day.
So now, with a laundry room upstairs in our beautiful new house, I do a load as soon as there’s enough of one sort (colors, whites, etc) so that I never have to repeat the experience of laundry day again in my life.
I’m the Mom around here, and that’s exactly how I do it. I do at least five or six loads, and fold it at night in front of the TV. I can’t do it all at once, of course; I only have one washer and one dryer, but I can get it all done in a couple of hours, and folded in an hour or so. I don’t fold as it’s done drying - I pile socks and undies and other stuff in the basket, I half-fold t-shirts and towels on top of the dryer, good shirts and all pants all get hung up.
Of course, the rest of my family thinks we have Laundry Fairies. They just drop the dirty clothes anywhere and the Laundry Fairies come and pick it up and spirit it away and then bring it back in a few days clean and April-fresh. They even dig it out from under the beds! :rolleyes:
I wash every day. I’m fussy about what gets washed with what so I won’t do a load of whites until I have enough for a full load. Sheets only get washed with sheets; towels with towels. Tea towels get washed on their own in superhot water with bleach and stuff.
If I had to do the washing at the laundromat, I have no doubt I’d trim those standards down to size, though.
Back when I was an hourly consultant with all the work I could handle, it became apparent to me that it was cost effective for me to drop the laundry off at a wash and fold laundromat and go to the office to make more than it was costing to have my laundry done. I’m no longer a consultant, but I still use the wash and fold places.
It really doesn’t cost very much. About three weeks worth of socks, underwear, jeans, t-shirts and towels will be about $15. I haven’t done my own laundry since about 1995.
Geez, I’m such a college student. The clothes I wear in a week take at most two loads to get through. Those also happen to be the only clothes I own. Make that I’m such a poor fashionally-challenged college student. I pretty much do what you do, Thea. I put in a load to let wash, and I put in the other load as the first one dries. I don’t like to take up too much equipment.
I generally have two or three loads a week (and it’s only three if I do my sheets too). I pick a weekday morning, take it down to the laundry room in the building and just get it all done.
I also make myself fold it right after the dryer finishes, before I even bring it upstairs. If a load of unfolded laundry makes it upstairs, I’ll clothe myself out of it for a week, putting the dirty laundry on the floor. I find that my life is much simpler if I just get it folded downstairs.
I usually do a couple of loads a week, mostly on Sunday nights when I realize that BiblioCat, I mean the Laundry Fairies probably won’t be bringing me clean clothes for the work week. Quite often I do the loads as I’m surfing the web. Since I have my own machines, I wash one load, throw it in the dryer and start the next in the washer. And when they come out of the dryer they get tossed on my dining-room table, ready to be picked through the coming week. Can anyone tell I’m single?
Working in a job where I get extremely dirty and smelly most days, I tend to wash daily. This is just because I can’t stand the smell of the dirty clothes and coveralls hanging around the house. The non stinky stuff gets saved up for a saturday and I do two loads of it.
Dryers aren’t usually necessary in this climate - I take the clothes home wet and hang them on the line.
I like to do it all in one day. I don’t enjoy doing laundry and getting it all done at once works best for me. Plus I’d hate never knowing if whatever item I needed were dirty, drying, needed ironing or was hiding in a drawer.
I do a load of washing pretty well every day. I don’t know why, but I absolutely LOVE doing the laundry! The whole process. I guess perhaps it’s something incredibly basic like making things get all nice and clean. I actually even find folding the washing quite relaxing and therapeutic! shrugs Am I mad, or what?
You just made me spit water all over myself. Congratulations.
As for me, I’m a college student with an ample enough wardrobe and clothing recycling abilities to go three weeks before my main set of clothes is so messed up/dirty/stained/smelly that they’re deemed unwearable and must be washed. I do this partially because it costs me more money than I care to pay to do laundry in my dorm… but it’s cheaper than community laundry facilities that come with half of the apartment complexes in town. It’s a good thing that I also tend to own way too much underwear and socks.
