Works for Me Wednesday: Best Tips Edition
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This week’s WFMW is a themed edition highlighting the best WFMW tip each participant has posted. Following may not be my greatest tip ever, but it’s one I use every day. It was also imported from my now defunct frugal blog, so most of you have probably never noticed it hiding out in the archives over here.
I picked up this laundry tip from somewhere on the web a couple of years ago. I don’t remember where, but I wanted to be upfront that it’s not an original idea. 😉
It is my dream to one day have an actual laundry room. For now, though, I’m stuck with my laundry closet. Even with limited space, however, it is possible to have some degree of organization in the laundry room…and to delegate the chore of putting the clean laundry away.
A couple of years ago, my husband added a half-shelf just above our washer. I bought three plastic baskets – one for each child. The baskets are stored on the shelf and I put the kids’ clean laundry into the baskets as I finish folding it. Once the baskets are full, I simply place them in the kids’ rooms and put the “put away clean laundry” card into their chore pockets.
This is much better than the former method which consisted of either me putting the clothes away or calling the kids away from whatever they were doing at the time (I mean, c’mon, even I don’t want to stop doing something fun to put clothes away. Why should they?).
I also read a tip in a magazine (I’ll tentatively say Family Fun) about what to do with the one sock that the dryer doesn’t eat. I strung some twine on the bottom of my shelf and clipped some clothes pins to the twine. I hang the mismatched sock from the twine until its mate reappears. This is much better than just putting the mismatched sock into the kids’ drawers since they don’t seem to comprehend the concept of taking two matching, but as-of-yet-not-matched-together socks from their drawer and wearing them.
Oh, and then, there is the shower bar that I put in one corner of the laundry closet to hold all the empty hangers.
For more “Best Tips,” visit Kristin’s Works for Me Wednesday post at We Are THAT Family.
Kris Bales is a newly-retired homeschool mom and the quirky, Christ-following, painfully honest founder (and former owner) of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. She has a pretty serious addiction to sweet tea and Words with Friends. Kris and her husband of over 30 years are parents to three amazing homeschool grads. They share their home with three dogs, two cats, a ball python, a bearded dragon, and seven birds.
Great! I can always use help in the laundry department. (We have a laundry “closet”, too.)
I love the photos, too.
The shower bar is a really good idea! I may need to convince my husband we need to install a little one in our laundry room =)
Love the basket idea. G helps me fold sometimes so that is nice. 🙂
ok, so you are my new favorite blog in all the land! “Chore Pockets” and 3 excellent laundry tips; all in one post! Love that.
it says a lot about us that we can multi-use a showerbar for laundry. I have one to hang hangers on and another we hang up the non-dryable cloths.
I do like the sock idea. I think the dryer eats baby socks. 🙁
Aww, you’ve done so well orgainizing your laundry closet! I like the little clothesline for the mismatched socks …
I would be happy with a laundry closet. Our washer sits right next to our bathroom sink, and right in front of our bath/shower door like most Japanese apartments! I love the sock clipping idea. The only problem is that we have to hang all of our clothes outside, so having it above the washer wouldn’t really help. I will have to think of a good place for it. Maybe I could hang a line in the room where their clothes are kept and decorate with unmatched socks!
Love the laundry ideas. Our laundry room is a cross between a closet and a room, still not big enough so I’m always looking for organizing ideas for small spaces.
Thank you for visiting for WFMW. Hope those Legos get organized.
Great laundry room organization! And I clicked over to your chore chart and love it! Seriously, I have yet to find a chore chart I really thought I could consistently use with my kids, so it’s pretty much just me nagging them about chores. I am so going to try that chart!!
I dream of a beautifully organised laundry room, with a DOOR I can SHUT, lol!!
Your basket idea reminded me of an idea I read in Emily Barnes’ book, 15-Minute Organiser. She has a different coloured laundry basket per family member.
Your laundry closet is so much more organized than my laundry “room” which is my basement PIT. 😉