Moms of Many ... Name your creative ways to stow clean clothes

[mirth]

How do you stow/organize clean clothes in between the time they leave the dryer (or line) and the time they end up on a child's body? I am not a fan of transporting clothes to different dressers anymore.

[Murphy101]

I don't. Laundry is dumped in the sofa and sorted (by 2 kids) then they all put their own stuff away.

[Forget-Me-Not]

Laundry is folded in a central location and individual family members put their own stack away (or help with it).

[mirth]

But what are they putting it into? Dressers, or some other clothes-stowing thing?

[BlessedMom]

The majority of our clothing gets hung up on a hanger, after a 5 minute tumble in the dryer, then just hung in the closet when they are dry. Undies, socks, and pj's are folded neatly & put away in drawers.

 

I read an article once where someone built a storage unit in the laundry room & each person had a large basket that fit on a shelf & all laundry was folded and stored in each basket.

[justLisa]

I have plans to make laundry basket dressers. We are a family of 4 but I swear we dirty enough clothes for 25 people.

[Coffeetime]

Yeah.. laundry goes straight from my tiny laundry room to my bedroom, where it gets folded and left in baskets and piles on the floor. :glare: My kids don't have dressers. When they do they just end up making them so stinkin' messy it's pointless. And my girl's little bity room has three beds in it- no room for anything else. Ugh. It's a mess.

 

 

I have plans to make laundry basket dressers. We are a family of 4 but I swear we dirty enough clothes for 25 people.

 

I NEED THESE.

 

I don't have room in my laundry room, but I could stack some in my boy's room and in my room for the girls and dh and I!!

 

Need to hire someone to make some of those, I think....

[justLisa]

Yeah.. laundry goes straight from my tiny laundry room to my bedroom, where it gets folded and left in baskets and piles on the floor. :glare: My kids don't have dressers. When they do they just end up making them so stinkin' messy it's pointless. And my girl's little bity room has three beds in it- no room for anything else. Ugh. It's a mess.

 

 

 

 

I NEED THESE.

 

I don't have room in my laundry room, but I could stack some in my boy's room and in my room for the girls and dh and I!!

 

Need to hire someone to make some of those, I think....

 

I am trying to carve out some time. I have limited building skills but these are really easy. You can have the lumber yard cut the pieces for you. I have a pocket hole jig which makes it easier. Best hundred bucks I ever spent.

 

I have a make shift thing right now becasue I haven't had time to make them. I just have a cheap ikea table that I put baskets under and on top. I have plans to have 2 of these near the laundry room. I already have a hanging rod where I hang things up, and I"ve been folding each person's foldables and leaving them in a basket. I don't care if they take it to their rooms and put away or get dressed out of that basket in front of the laundry room every day. I'm just sick of putting clothes away and no one seems to care!

 

Kids both have captain's type beds with drawers underneath, but they keep other stuff in them. I hate dressers.

[blakereese]

I have plans to make laundry basket dressers. We are a family of 4 but I swear we dirty enough clothes for 25 people.

 

LOVE this idea. I only have 3 kids, but like you, have enough dirty laundry for much more. It is the dance, soccer, swim, golf, work out clothing, etc etc that kills me!

 

Not sure if I can get DH to find time this weekend to do this, but I am going to try!!

 

Thanks for the link. I love the Ana White site, but haven't looked at it in a long time.

[Amy in NH]

We have a family closet/laundry room.

 

The room has a wall of 8' long shelves. Each person has their own shelf that holds all of their clothes: one pile each of sweats, jeans/pants, long sleeve shirts, short sleeve shirts, shorts, & pajamas (the piles change by the season). Each person has two cloth bins, on one end of the shelves, that hold their socks and underwear.

 

On the opposite wall are the washer and dryer, with a set of cabinets above them. I do laundry every day. I fold the clothes hot out of the dryer, to avoid wrinkles, and place the item on its respective pile. We have one pole for all of the hanging clothes. If we wore more dressy clothes, we would have used more of the space for a pole.

 

We have a laundry-folding table next to the dryer with a rolling 3-section hamper underneath.

Edited September 25, 2012 by Amy in NH

[Forget-Me-Not]

But what are they putting it into? Dressers, or some other clothes-stowing thing?

 

Oh, I misunderstood. . . you're looking for dresser alternatives? All my kids have dressers, except my son, who has modular shelves in his closet.

[Excelsior! Academy]

We are in the process of moving every stitch of clothing to our garage/laundry room. The floordrobe days are over! Dh purchased pieces of this http://www.lowes.com/pd_339203-11487-WSWS-CS1C_0__?productId=3361102&Ntt=allen+roth+closet&pl=1&currentURL=%3FNtt%3Dallen%2Broth%2Bcloset&facetInfo= from Allen Roth at Lowes.

[umsami]

I'm still looking for solutions. Our old cheap IKEA dressers were not worth moving, so right now the kids each have a large plastic bin which has 50% of their clothes (the other 50% is still packed from the move.) I have these little $10 carts from Target which have three drawers...one for undies, one for socks, and one for PJs.

 

I need a better solution.

[saraha]

As our handme down dressers have fallen apart from being stuffed to full:glare: we have replaced with plastic shelving from walmart that we put laundry baskets on. Two of my girls wear the same/similar size, so we put one up in their closet and they have a basket for socks/underwear/pjs (we rewear pjs and only need 3 sets each), a basket for shirts and one for pants, one on each shelf. Its like the basket dresser, only no building.

[2squared]

Can you narrow down the problem? Is it dirty laundry backup, getting clothes folded, transporting clean clothes, or having enough storage space? Your system has a breakdown somewhere, and it might not be a dresser issue.

 

I wash clothes and fold clothes every day. Each child takes a small pile to his/her dresser to put away. Each child has 1-2 drawers in a dresser, but those drawers are maybe 50% full. With only 1 or 2 half-full dresser drawers, it is easy for them to put their clothes away. They don't have to decide which drawer the clothes go into, and they don't have any problem finding room in the drawers. My kids have no hanging clothes storage. They also don't have much clothing. Too much clothing complicates my laundry system.

 

Also - odds and ends are not stored in the kids' rooms. Sports clothing is stored in sports bags in the entry way. Socks, jackets, and shoes are stored in the entry way. Underwear for my two youngest is stored in the bathroom. My 1yo's clothes are in my room rather than in his room upstairs.

[silliness7]

I've been doing laundry at the laundromat since March. I can get clothes for 9 sorted, washed, dried, folded, and put away in 2.5 hrs. once a week. It's incredible. I used to spend countless time fiddling with laundry and it was never completely done.

 

We do store our clothes in dressers in bedrooms. Having dressers with plenty of room is key. Through the week we just have to get dirty laundry in the hampers. My dh just asked me if I wanted him to save up some money for a new washer. I said NO NO NO!!!!

 

When we get down to 5 people in the house, I'll think about it.

[BlsdMama]

Hmmm... The laundry thing has me thinking. ;)

 

The boys share one dresser. Everyday shirts and all bottoms go in one dresser. (Two boys)

 

The upstairs girls hang all dresses and all shirts. All socks and unders go into one shared laundry basket in the closet. All pants are folded and put on a HIGH shelf in the closet. (This is a good plan because they can only get what mama gives them. I'm good with that.) The girls included in this are: Elizabeth, Rebecca, Abigail, and Daniella

 

Oldest DD (16) and Sarah (5) share a room downstairs. All tops & skirts are hung. All bottoms folded. Oldest's goes on the top closet shelf, Sarah's go in a trundle drawer under the bed.

 

Baby shares with Mama & Daddy. We have one small five drawer dresser for socks & unders - 1 drawer for mama and one for dad. One drawer for random stuff that needs to be out of reach but I don't have an exact spot for. Two drawers for Liv.

 

 

 

So laundry goes like this:

 

One hamper - our bathroom.

All clothes either get delivered to that hamper or directly downstairs. Each oldest in each room is responsible to make sure all dirty laundry is removed from room daily.

 

Laundry room: Dirty pile. Sort as you load the washer. Into the dryer or on the line. From the dryer to the pile in the basement. Every day or every other day, kids are sent to have a Laundry Party. :P This involves sorting by rooms. Each pile is delivered to room. It is then the occupant's responsibility to hang up and/or fold and put away all of their own laundry.

 

For littles - every child age 5 and up does their own laundry.

Ana helps Sarah.

Elizabeth helps Daniella.

I take care of Olivia.

 

That's it. No magic, just daily trudging.

[sparkygirl]

We are a family of 5 and recently taacked this issue in our home. In our master bedroom we have one dresser in our closet and the toddler's changing table in the room. Each family member has 7 outfits each in a labeled plastic bin. (except the toddler who has spares in her changing table since she goes through clothes like mad).

 

There are no longer dressers or clothes in each room. The dirty hamper is also in our room. We do one load of laundry a day. so the clothes go from our room to be worn returned to our room dirty then into the hamper washed and then returned to our room to be folded and put away.

 

The kids closets have been turned into desk/study nook areas.