Day 2: Circle of Life: Laundry

Laundry is one thing I detest doing. There is no point to doing them especially when you have boys. By the time its washed, occasionally ironed and put in its drawers, its back in the laundry hamper in no time. Why bother?

For a while I used have four baskets and the most work I would do is separate them after wash into each family member and pick out clothes for each day from there. So I skipped the part of folding and putting it into drawers. It worked for a while. Then it got all mixed up with dirty and clean clothes and the boys looked and smelled wonderful (sarcasm).

When we bought our first home last year we had space for a proper system. I wanted the washing machine and dryer to be downstairs in the kitchen extension room we had(The Dutch call it "bijkeuken" , a room next to the kitchen). That gave me the opportunity to hang laundry out when the weather was good. Typical Dutch homes, usually have the provision for the laundry department in the attic room or corridor outside the attic. Many times I would be in denial, since I never saw the laundry. There were those smelly days when I would forget to take the wet clothes out and hang it to dry or use the dryer. Thankfully, I remember a week later. On wash cycle once again! With loads of nice perfumed softener to take the moldy smell out.

So, with the washing machine in the bijkeuken and the dryer on top of it, these two machines were nicely tucked away in the corner hiding behind the door to the playroom. We also placed a stand cum pull out shelf (the entire length and width of the machines) in between them. This gave me the opportunity to place the basket of wet clothes on the pull out shelf and load them into the dryer at the height of the dryer. And fold clothes immediately out of the dryer into the basket.No bending down.

We also bought a Trofast Ikea shelf with a single bucket in each section (three in total). This was going to be our solution to the laundry flow. One of the buckets would be used as dirty laundry, the second when the clothes are dry and I haven't had a chance to fold them and the third as and when I fold and iron them. This way I wouldn't have baskets of clothes on top of my breakfast nook table and that room looking like a mess. I have enough space to set up my ironing board and iron when I have time.

My breakfast nook

The laundry system on the bottom. The top boxes are for paper waste, plastic and bottles for recycling.

Also fixing a laundry day and folding/ironing day helps. So you know those are your days and you are not dealing with piled up laundry from two weeks at some point.

Now, this is a system that is now working. It might all go wrong later, perhaps. But for now, my family has clean clothes and the bijkeuken doesn't look like a outlet store disaster.