Laundry

I hate to do laundry. During the school year, it accumulates during the week and I spend the better part of a day each weekend trying to get it all done. It can be very overwhelming. Of course I get so SICK of it on the weekend that I don't want to have anything to do with it during the week. I really need to break this cycle.

When we first spoke to the man who came up with our house plan, we were told to show up with a wish list. Ted wanted one thing, and one thing only....a toilet. Pretty profound for a plumber, wouldn't you say?

I, on the other hand, had a THREE page list, with specifics for each room.

Let's talk about the laundry room, shall we?

After spending years trudging down to the basement to do the laundry, I knew what I'd like in an ideal laundry room.

It had to have some space.

It had to have a laundry tub.

It had to have telephone and cable. (Hey, if I'm going to spend time in there, I need to be entertained while I'm folding!)

It had to have room for a freezer.

It had to have at least one window. (We ended up with two and I'm thrilled!)

It had to have a cabinet.

It had to have a long countertop with a shelf underneath for baskets.

When the laundry room is not overflowing, it's a very nice room. However, that's a rare occurrence.

I can't believe I'm going to share these pictures with you, but here goes...

This is what it looks like when everyone brings in their hampers and baskets filled with dirty clothes. The baskets on top of the countertop are clean clothes that still need to be folded, sigh. I just never get caught up.

I put baskets on the floor, underneath the shelf, and then sort them into various loads that must await their turn in the washer. The white baskets on the shelf hold clean, folded laundry. Everyone is responsible for taking their basket to their room, putting their own laundry away, then returning their basket to the laundry room. And preferably without me having to beg them for it for three days.

Once it's all sorted and I've started the actual washing, I fold the leftover items and put them in the appropriate baskets. Then I tell myself that it wasn't that bad and if I could only stay caught up with things, it would be a tolerable task. (Yeah, right.) I also have an opportunity to straighten the countertop. The pile of "things" next to the Shout bottle are the misfit socks. I'm sure everyone has some of these lying around. Heck, maybe some of your missing socks are in this pile here. When I'm folding, if a sock doesn't have a mate, it goes into that pile. About once a month I lay them all out on the counter and look for any matches. Some socks have been in that pile since we moved in over two and a half years ago. Somehow I seriously doubt if their mates will ever resurface. (Okay, so I sometimes put on the Weather Channel to see what to get out to wear for the upcoming week.)

Here, you can see that I've actually made a fair amount of progress. There are still four loads left to do, but I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel. In the meantime I had one son come and get his basket, put his things away and return the basket to me.

So what kind of a washer and dryer do I have that will take the abuse week after week?

We researched washers and dryers a few years ago, and decided to go with the Whirlpool Duet. Naturally, AFTER we got them, they came out in colors...I would love to have them in red, but these will do just fine until we wear them out.

They are both in use in this particular picture, with a small load patiently waiting its turn.

And that's when I put the camera away for fear that I wouldn't remember where I last used it and I never finished photographing the day's events. However I'm sure you get the idea.

Maybe I should just get a second job so that I can hire a laundress to come in every day and take care of all the dirty clothes.

Hey, that's a thought...