So how do you do laundry? How is clean laundry stored in your house? I'm thinking about getting rid of dressers. Anyone done this? Perhaps re-purposing more than getting rid of. They are on our landing upstairs. But I'm wondering if a laundry basket approach would work better for us. The laundry NEVER stays properly folded and it would just be easier to toss their laundry into their clean hamper. Assign them each a hamper for clean and one for dirty and wash once the dirty is full? Anyone thought of or put something like this into practice? I'm thinking about making these: http://ana-white.com/2012/03/plans/brook-laundry-basket-dresser-4-tall-and-lengthwise
I totally LOVE that laundry dresser. We do have dressers, but they are all small. In the past, we have stored some of them in closets to give us more room. With the exception of my youngest, they all do pretty well keeping the clean clothes put away. The dirty clothes are another thing! I'll ask for all dirty clothes to be taken to the laundry room, and when I'm done, huge mounds will appear!
Yes, the dirty laundry is the biggest problem but I would also like to find a way to use our landing more effectively. I just haven't found it quite yet. Blah.
I'm thinking since it's laundry baskets I can just bring down the one full of dirty laundry, toss the clean laundry back into it once it's gone through it's cycle and take it back up to the "Dresser" I just really love the look of it. I love the simplicity of it. And the versatility because we wouldn't have to use it always for laundry if we found that it didn't suit that area we could use it for toys or my craft room - fabric and such.
I really like that basket dresser thing. It looks like it would be easier for younger kids to manage, rather than trying to open and close dresser drawers. And you could still put folded items in there too. I could see that being perfect for hats, mittens, boots, and snow pants at my place. Our entryway always ends up being a mass of those things all winter long. We sort of unintentionally do the clean laundry basket thing. Basically, I have a laundry basket in my room where I pile the laundry to be folded, then I fold it in piles on the bed. Well....it pretty much is always a huge pile, because it seems that as soon as I get a good portion of the items folded and put away, I have another 1-2 loads to dump on there. Plus I don't have room to put everything away if it all does get folded. Someone is ALWAYS digging in there for something or other. (I really, really hate it.)
Laundry is a never ending problem in my house. I was going to build a system like that but found it was too big for the space I was going to use it. We have tried everything with laundry and trying to keep it under control. With 9 people in my family I have found the only thing that works is having laundry baskets in my laundry/mudroom tucked under the bench and kids bring their clothes up each night and sort them into the baskets they go into. As for clean clothes....I can fold all I want and hang up everything but somehow it still all ends up all over my kids bedroom floors. :roll: We are not perfect and sometimes I have 10 loads of dirty laundry spilled all over my laundry room floor, but it seems that sometimes some things have to go undone so others can get done.
We have a central location for dirty (in theory!), and when a basket is full, I wash it. I sort it for the kids in their laundry baskets and then they are to fold and put away. It works as long as everyone is putting their dirties in there.....I hate room cleaning day because I can go from 3 empty hampers to 3 full hampers in a matter of minutes. It's really staying on top of them that needs to be done!!!! It's helped that I've cleaned our bedroom and started making my bed every day (I used to abhor this task, but have found it habit now and cannot stand to leave my bedroom without the bed being made!!!)....my husband and I both are now really good about putting laundry in the hampers because we want the bedroom to look neat. It helps. I have no space for the place your suggesting, but that would be nice, to have a family closet.
We used to use the laundry room as a family closet. The kids aren't too bad about leaving clean laundry laying about the floors and what not. I'm just tired of folding laundry that doesn't stay folded. :lol: We have a "central" spot for dirty laundry too - in our bathroom. It does help. Like you kbabe I wash when the hamper gets full and also like you when it's time to clean upstairs where the kids' room is I end up with at least two more loads of laundry to do. Ahh well the joys of small children.
We have three hampers for dirty clothes. One for adults, one for children, one for towels. The way it is supposed to work is that laundry gets washed as hampers are close to full. That isn't my reality as they always seem to be full the day after they are emptied or overflowing onto the floor before I get to washing. Each of us has our own chest of drawers. I hang the boys' good shirts. They each have four drawers: underwear/socks, pajamas, good pants/extra short sleeved shirts, play pants/shirts. I hang all adult shirts and our dressers are pretty much arranged like the boys' except hubby sleeps in shorts and those are kept in the same drawer as his other shorts. Sometimes I actually get things washed and put away. Other times we live out of the laundry basket. The only problem with that is the clothes are really wrinkly and I do not iron. Like, don't even own one. If a quick toss in the dryer doesn't do the trick, too bad. Clothes tend to pretty much stay folded once in drawers. I honestly don't care about underwear and socks. I only buy white for the boys so there is no trouble matching. If those drawers are a mess, it only hurts them when trying to find things. I roll boy pants as it seems to take up less space and they have an easier time keeping them rolled than folded. I don't get that, but whatever works, right? Anyway, that was probably way more of an answer to your question than you wanted. I, personally, wouldn't move to the laundry basket idea you linked to, but mainly because it would end up looking messy at my house. At least in drawers, our mess is hidden from view. You know, when the drawers get closed. Without pieces of clothing hanging out. Yeah. It's not a perfect system we have going.
right now we don't have a dresser in the boys room and its causing a problem, maybe you can have a good system, my girls are doing that sort of thing........
The only potential problem I would foresee with that basket system at our house is that the baskets wouldn't last long. But maybe my boys are rougher than yours! I would have to have actual shelves under the baskets, rather than having them hang by their sides. I don't find that the current, poorly made baskets would hold up to that kind of use. I could make them work, but my kids would end up breaking/cracking/overloading them. A shelf under them would take more of the stress of the plastic baskets. Now if they were metal baskets, that would be a different story. It wouldn't be that hard to just slide a piece of wood over the little wood rails to make it into a shelf system. We have some shelves made like that and they work well. I don't know if Target still sells them, but we bought some neat looking metal shelf systems there that are well made. You could put baskets on something like that too.
My husband REALLY wants a dresser. The only person who has a dresser in the house in our youngest on, and it's a tiny dresser. We never use it. :/ I have tried and tried and tried to get ahold of the laundry situation in our house but it seems completely impossible. One could spend all day folding, washing, sorting, and putting away, and the same time next week it's all undone. Clean clothes are scattered because someone is looking for this, that, and the other, and clothes just seem to live in a clean basket. This seems like a good solution. We have a little catwalk area, if you will, next to our stairs and it serves absolutally no purpose other than to be an empty tempting place for children to play. Maybe in the next couple months I can convince DH to build this.
