I'm kind of curious (folding laundry while the kids play). I have (I think) 4 laundry baskets for 2 adults and 3 kids. I do not always have a chance to put clean clothes away, so more often than not they stay clean and folded in the baskets for too long (sometimes until they are worn). I am also facing the task of getting folded clothes (sorted, too) upstairs without the aid of a basket since they are all full of clean clothes. I am rather tempted to buy more baskets so I have some for clean and dirty laundry (it would also mean I didn't have to wipe out the baskets when they switch from dirty to clean). Just curious!
(Today my husband is off, so I will probably have a chance to go upstairs without kids and put clothes away--can't leave them alone down here and can't bring them upstairs with me to get things done.)
Seems people do both! I don't get things put away because my 4 year old and 2 1/2 year old cannot be left alone downstairs while I put clothes away upstairs, they are not allowed to play in our room where most of the laundry goes (it is not a "safe" room and I do not want things broken), and they cannot put their own clothes away since their shirts get hung up and it is much faster for me to get it done alone. I actually kind of like putting things away because it is a few quiet minutes to myself and I only keep clothes I really like--the only overflowing dresser is my husband's and he recently sorted so it's pretty good for now. :) I probably will buy another basket or two anyway since the kids are usually playing with them and have the duct tape repairs aren't holding up too well.
We also do laundry every day (and with a newborn and active kids, we go through a lot of clothes due to spit up and/or mud. The kids are also never allowed in our basement where the laundry is, so can't do much there. :)
And no, I don't actually sanitize or "clean" my laundry baskets, but I do have to at least tap them out before putting clean clothes in them and sometimes have to wipe them off--my kids use them as vehicles or boats or pirate ships or space ships (one reason my laundry cleaning includes a "strewn about the living room in heaps" phase) so I also find stuff caked or gooed on, we have clothes with kid and cat spit-up and general dirt and debris. I usually use an old dryer sheet or about to be washed cleaning rag to wipe the baskets out if they are nasty, but sometimes I think it might be cleaner to have a separate "dirty" and "clean" basket. :)
I have 4 tall skinny ones in the laundry room for sorting laundry daily. When they get full it's time to run a load. The bins are numbered and my three year old can even put her clothes in the proper bin. I only have one for clean clothes so that I'm forced to put them away.
Buy more.
I have 6 for a family of 5 - we live in a two story with a finished basement... I need enough to move laundry up from the basement to bedrooms, to store dirty stuff before it goes down, and to "store" clean stuff until I get it put away. I have 3 larger retangular and 3 smaller round ones.
J.
Ack! Don't buy more. Instead, get in the habit of getting the clean clothes put away or you will just end up with laundry all over your house - and isn't that what your nice dressers and closets are for? When we went down to 2 main baskets (one for DH and I, the other for the kids in the bathroom) magically, the clean clothes got put away because we had no place to put the dirty ones. I have a spare to collect overflow like sheets, blankets, and extra towels but really, less is better because it forces you to complete the job.
If you dread putting the laundry away because your closets and dressers are too full, be relentless with keeping only the clothes you all wear, love and look good in. Out of season clothes should be stored somewhere else, and that which you don't actually wear because it doesn't look right on you, is worn out, etc. should be trashed or donate. Check out flylady.net if you need help with tackling laundry. A load a day, washed and PUT AWAY, really works!
I have done this forever, each person has their own basket. I spread them out next to the dryer and throw each person's laundry in their own basket. Makes it real easy to put it away because it is already sorted.
Now I wish I could figure out where the heck socks go! :(
Oh I just realized you don't have hampers for the dirty clothes. Get hampers in every room and a sorter. They have three compartment sorters that you can carry since it appears you have a two story. Walk from hamper to hamper sorting as you go. Take it to the laundry room and launder. Then use the basket system above. The process removes a lot of unneeded steps and frees up a lot of time.
See you clean the room and throw the laundry in the hamper. Instead of throwing everything together and then sorting you sort in that step as well, time saved. The laundry goes from the sorter to machine. Then instead of throwing it into one basket you throw it into each basket therefore it becomes one step instead of two. I used to stack each basket inside the other to save room but now I have a shelf that holds each person's basket. :)
The other benefit is that if you don't have time to fold and child 1 needs socks they are easy to find. :)
I don't have an answer, but I want to say Thank you, Thank you for asking this and thank you to everyone that responded to her. I am going shopping this weekend. I now know what I am doing wrong and what will fix it for my family. Thank you again. I really can't say it enough...
No, but I only have ONE for 4 people. We need like 3 more but it seems like a waste of money. We have canvas hampers with handles which I like because then the dirty clothes are in there and there are only clean clothes in the basket. But I break that rule all the time :)
Sounds to me like you have three helpers who should be putting those clothes away this afternoon. Wait no, four!!
I have 4 baskets.
I leave 2 in the hallway: One is for white and the other for colors. Then once I take them out of the dryer I have 2 more baskets. One for the kids clothes and one for our clothes. The kids bedroom is upstairs so I just take the basket up there to fold and iron. Our bedrom is downstairs so I just bring our basket in there to fold.
Growing up, I think my mom only had one basket 8-)
It's funny you ask that. I never seem to have 'quite' the right amount. I have 3- and I won't allow myself to buy any more. Mostly because I know that having just the three keeps me on my toes more. I have to keep clean laundry put away in order to keep laundry going. I know if I had a few more the laundry would sit longer! Sad that I have to trick myself, but whatever works! Thanks for posting!
I love baskets (or those that are like between baskets and bags) I have many for many things.
I have the one for the car (so we bring or take stuff from the car) the ones for the stairs (so we can bring all the stuff that goes upstairs at once, or other way around), of course the toys ones, the dry cleaning one, the ups we got visits and house in messy(lol) and others.
For the laundry, we use to have the big one with 3 dividers, for our master bedroom and one for each kid, but now we live in tiny house with tiny bath, we only have one big one for all, plus 2 medium ones for the clean clothes, some times is for give my older her clothes away but others like you I just kept my clean clothes there until I can put them away.
We only have one, and it is enough. We have two cloth hampers for dirty clothes, and use the basket to get clean clothes out of the dryer. Clean clothes are folded and put away right away. We're all neat freaks except my youngest, so this system works well for us. :)
NO, I DON'T. One would think I would just go ahead and buy more since I complain about it so much. But, my problem with more baskets is then the laundry would never get put away!!!
I have 1 hamper that all the dirty clothes go in, then one basket that the clean clothes go in. I usually fold the clothes and put them on our bed. If for some reason we are lazy and don't put the clothes away, they go back into the basket....and will sit there until I complain enough that I don't have a basket to do laundry!
I have one laundry basket. I wash, dry,fold, and put away. I hate leaving laundry just sitting there. You do have a lot going on so I am not going to critisize your housekeeping. I can see some did by your What Happened I didn't read any answers yet. I never wipe out THE basket if there are dirty clothes in it before clean. I find that odd I mean are your clothes caked with mud and baby poop or something..lol I have 3 kids 8.5.1. so I am always doing laundry and I know if I had more baskets they would be all over the house and drive me crazy not to mention the boys going through them and wrinkling the clothes up!
I have like 5 plus hampers - and it's made me lazy. Two are full of clean, unfolded clothes all the time. One often has dirty stuff and the other two has folded stuff. I just never get a chance to put anything away and I'm not forced to when they are so tidy in a basket :)
We have a chute, so getting the dirty ones "to" the laundry is not an issue. We are a family of 3 and 2 large baskets work well for me.
The secret is emptying them right away! LOL
I had more, but kids use them to store toys. I went and got two black ones so it is obvious those are for clean clothes only. The tall white hampers stay in the laundry room for dirty clothes and the one gets nasty from mud.
Every bedroom has one basket that they have to empty when it gets full.
If it helps you, do it.
I have 4 baskets...we're a family of 5, soon to be 6. One in each bathroom (two bathrooms) and the other two are in the laundry closet. I don't have baskets for clean clothes vs. dirty clothes ~I use all 4 for both. I personally believe that would be a waste of money to have so many laundry baskets and unless my kiddos have used the baskets for their personal enjoyment (ex. sitting inside of them and zooming each other around the house), I don't wipe them out either. It's only us (not strangers) and I don't put things in the baskets that have debris in them....I would always shake them out beforehand anyway.
Here is my routine: I use all 4 baskets to sort my laundry before washing. I wash the clothes, when everything is washed and dried, I take those same clothes baskets, filled with clean clothes and take them to the couch where I fold them and place all the clean laundry on the coffee table and couch. When my husband and children come home from school, they know where their piles are and they put them away accordingly. My children are old enough to put their own things away and IF I'm in a good mood, I will put my hubby's clothes away...but he's a grown man so he's capable of putting his stuff away too. Laundry is my least favorite chore as it never seems to be a chore where you are "done." Tomorrow, with a family of 5, all of the baskets will be filled...and I just washed laundry today. Ugh.
I have a double laundry hamper with the mesh bags....a blue bag for colored clothes, a white bag for white clothes, in the laundry room, and a normal hamper in the master bath which I put with the other clothes on laundry day. I have ONE round laundry basket, for a family of 4. Dirty clothes go in the hamper (preschooler has been doing this on his own since he was 2 1/2, and the 16 month old does it too "like basketball", but hasn't gotten the difference yet between colors and whites everytime). I do ALL laundry for the week only one day a week (4 loads: whites, darks, pants, husband's work shirts). I take clothes out of the hamper, into the washer. When it's dry, my preschooler empties the dryer into the laundry basket and "drives" it to me. I fold the clothes and put them away during naptime. Sometimes there's 2 loads of clean clothes waiting to be folded, I put them together on the couch and at naptime, I get to watch TV (whatever I've DVR'd but not watched yet) while folding or slipping onto hangers, and put all the clothes away when I finish the task. Later, I'll fold/put away the other 2 loads of laundry while the boys are watching a movie or playing in the backyard. Easier to just get it done and put away so that it's all ready for the next week and noone is looking for anything.
I have 6 for a family of 4.
We have two in the laundry room for whites/darks.
One in each kids room.
One in our room.
One dedicated to clean socks in the living room because I loathe matching socks and the kids always put on their socks/shoes downstairs anyway.
I want one more to use to ferry clothes up and down the stairs to the kids rooms so that their laundry baskets stay in their rooms. I'm also going to buy a couple storage ottomans to hide the kid's socks which will leave me with an extra laundry basket - yea!
I've come to the conclusion that I will always be "one" short. I typically run all the loads, hang what needs hung out of the dryer, fold what needs folded out of the dryer, and leave the rest to be folded at a later time. I'm not always good about getting back to the rest so when I go to do a load and there is no hamper left, I know it is time to fold.
(I have a laundry sorter in my bathroom therefore I don't need them back for the dirty clothes until it is time to run a load. I could actually just bring the bin from the sorter to the washing machine but then I would NEVER fold...so I haven't gotten into the habit of doing it that way...yet ;-)
LOL! Love the question...Ummm we have 5. If we run out...than we are way over due to wash clothes...We try not to let that happen.
I have moved up to the huge colorful round plastic tubbs with rope handles! I have one for each person. It sits in thier room so they can fill it up with dirty clothes. I also have one in the kids bathroom for towels and clothes they take off to take a shower. It makes it easy to do laundry, I just carry the tote to the garage. Once clothes are clean I fold them and divide them into the individual basket and take it to thier room for them to put away. Well, that's how it's supposed to work at least. :)
