You guys might know that I am really lazy about doing laundry. I honestly dread it. But it has to get done, so I wanted to come up with some ways to make the tedious parts a little easier and fault-free. Here are a few of my favorite tips…
1. Wrinkled dried clothes. How many times have you left your clothes in the dryer overnight and came back to a big wrinkled mess? Rather then spending the next 2 hours ironing things you don't want to be ironing, simply add a couple of ice cubes and run the dryer again one more time. The wrinkles will loosen out with the additional dampness.
2. Laundry communication. If you have a spouse or roommate who often picks up the load where you left off, make sure any specifics aren't missed. By keeping a small dry erase board and pen above the washing machine, your delicates won’t get tossed into the dryer by accident. Here you can note any details needed so you don’t end up with a shrunken sweater or whites that have turned pink.
3. A pocket catchall. Do you ever find yourself emptying out change, receipts, toys, or snacks from your family’s pockets when prepping clothes for the laundry? To make it easier to help those items go back to their rightful owner, put out a divided container in your laundry area as a pocket-content catch-all. It’s easy to keep everyone’s property separate and a breeze to transport room-to-room from the laundry room.
4. Laundry caddy. If you use a laundromat or your building has a communal laundry room, create a laundry caddy that contains an easily portable amount of items for your trip including quarters, several pods of detergent, dryer sheets, etc. The Seventh Generation Free & Clear laundry packs we used here have EPA Safer Choice certification which means that every ingredient in the laundry packs meets the EPA's stringent human health & environmental criteria. This also means one less thing to think about when it comes to keeping a product on a shelf away from kids.
5. Sheet Storage. Once you’ve washed and folded everything, keeping your clean sheets organized and looking sharp can be a challenge. Make it easy by folding the sheets, and putting all the sheets into the coordinating pillowcase. Your linen closet will be in order for the first time and you can keep all the bedding collections together!
Do you have any other go-to tips for making laundry day a little more bearable?
*This post is brought to you in collaboration with Seventh Generation. All words are my own.
{Photos by Casey Brodley, styling by Julia Wester}
Great tips! I especially like the catchall idea. I have a tip for laundry communication! Instead of using a dry erase board, I put all of the items that need to be pulled out into large mesh laundry bags. That way my husband knows exactly what to pull out and air dry. These are the ones that I bought, and they work perfectly! https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013T6U27M/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Great tips! Love that catchall idea.
Such great tips, I am making a laundry caddy immediately!
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Dry Erase Board idea. Yes!
I put things that can’t be dried in a lingerie bag. My husband knows that if he sees a lingerie bag that he needs to pull it out. This has been super helpful and easy to communicate. I have a bunch of lingerie bags and just toss the clothing in the bag before I even put it in the hamper.
I actually keep a fun, colorful piggybank of a smiling Buddha in my laundry and every time I find change just plop it in there. You would be amazed how much it adds up!
LOVE that last tip!! Thanks for sharing it! (goes home to start reorganizing..) 🙂
I do that, too! I have two bags, one for colors and one for whites, which I pre-sort. In the past, I’ve also just used a dry erase marker directly on the machine.❤️
So many ideas I would have never thought of if it wasn’t for this post! I really like the pocket catchall idea – I’m constantly leaving things in my pockets and then they get misplaced when I don’t know where to put them! Most definitely will be using this in the future! 🙂
Hi! Love these ideas… my real question though is- how did you get those ice cubes so clear???
These tips are great! Didn’t know about the ice cube tricks and getting the whiteboard immediately!
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I so loved the ideas you have here.
I appreciate the information on how to make laundry a little easier. I agree that it makes things a lot easier if you use some sort of caddy for your laundry is you use a laundromat, it helps to keep everything in order and ensure you don’t forget anything in particular. I would imagine that it is easy to forget something small when going to a laundromat and traveling back to get one item can be a pain.
I completely agree that doing laundry can be tedious and annoying. Doing laundry can be frustrating when trying to figure out how to fold and store your clean laundry in a way that will take up as little space as possible. It is such a great idea to store sheets in the coordinating pillowcase when you are folding them. This could help organize the variety of different sheets you have for your guest bedrooms.
Great laundry tips.