Sorting through my laundry issues

During the past six years of this blog, I have written many posts about my greatest foe in this house.
No matter how hard I have tried, I’ve never been able to keep up with my enemy’s super stellar powers. She churns out messy piles faster than I can clean them. She is spread all over the house. She waits. She topples. She stinks.
It’s as if she lives and breathes, growing larger and taller each day.
I’m sure you know her: The laundry.
Well, I’ve got big news about the laundry. Despite the risk of being awarded the prize for “Most Mundane Mothering Blog,” it’s time for me to announce a major change in our relationship. I probably shouldn’t even say this out loud.
I kind of.
like.
the laundry.
***
WHAT?!?!
It’s so weird I can barely believe it myself. And I don’t know how long it will last. So I better blog about it while it’s still a reality.
You might remember that my laundry room and office are in one room in our house. Last spring, when I decided to become an organized person and rid myself of the clutter in my life, I did a major overhaul of that room. I so wish I had taken a before shot. It was so embarrassing at the time that I couldn’t bring myself to shoot a photo.
This at least will show you the walls and all of the cleaning supplies, but this photo was taken AFTER I removed tons of junk and about 23 piles of dirty clothes from the room.

Now my laundry room is a much happier place. Even when it is piled full of laundry, I still love going in that room. In fact, because my office is in the other half of the room, it’s where I spend most of my time.

The mere fact that I like going IN the room has become a huge help in staying on top of the laundry.

I recently made another improvement that is so geeky I can’t even believe I’m going to blog about it. But here I go. With six people in our family, we create a ton of dirty laundry on a weekly basis. I have no choice but to buy detergent and fabric softener in the largest containers possible.
But I find that those uber large laundry containers drip all over the place. I had been pouring the detergent into smaller containers left over from other uses. I finally decided it was time to make my detergent pretty. So I found these two carafes for about $3 each at Target.

I pour my big box of OxyClean in the glass jar that once held candy. The little bowl is for my “laundry money” — all of the changes and other treasures that I find in the dryer.
Here’s my detergent before and after:


Ahhh… don’t they look happy?
I’ve also made a couple of other changes that help with the folding and putting away part of laundry. We all know that’s where the REAL fun begins, right?
I love organizing our closets into ROY G BIV order. Shockingly, I’ve managed to keep our clothes this way all year, since I first did it back in January! Now I kind of enjoy opening the closet and seeing all of the clothes hanging in order by color.
I also started watching BONES on Netflix. How does watching a crime show possibly help with the laundry? Well, by doing two loads of laundry per day, I usually have six loads of laundry to fold in just a few days. One episode of BONES is 45 minutes, which is the perfect length of time to work my way through all of that folding. I now look forward to an excuse to lock myself in my room with piles of clean clothes. I sort, fold and hang while BONES is busy cleaning bones and solving crime. It’s a great relationship.
Well, I could probably talk about the laundry all day (as you can tell), but I have a few loads waiting.
While I’m washing and drying, will you reveal your dirty laundry? I would love to know if anyone else struggles with laundry like I do? Do you have any secrets for staying on top of the laundry piles? Don’t be shy. It’s OK to come clean. 🙂