Heather says:
If you have fallen behind on laundry and have several loads to do, start with the one that requires the most obnoxious amount of folding. In my house that’s the light colored load, it’s crammed with toddler clothes and other piddly items that are annoying to fold. Finish off with towels which require the least effort to sort, fold, and put away.
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When I am way behind , I wash loads by the person – my son’s clothes only in one load, my daughter’s clothes only in one load , etc. That way one person’s things are washed together, dried together and when they come out of dryer, they go into a hamper, and I take them directly to the person’s room and do the folding in their room. The likelihood of them actually being put away or hung up is much greater if I do the folding in their room. When I fold in the den in front of the tv, which is my favorite place to fold, I many times put the clothes in hampers and they stay there for a while instead of being put away.
drying line dependant that I am, the heaviest, longest to dry stuff gets washed first, and the lightest, easiest to dry stuff goes in last. Which is why I had to come downstairs to the garage this morning wrapped in a towel to retrieve socks and underwear from the drying rack they were put on when I ran out of sunshine yesterday afternoon before the last load was actually completely dry.
But, the jeans and towels were, and they’d never dry overnight in the garage.
In our house it is the socks that must be done first, because we both hate to pair ’em up, and if they aren’t the first thing that needs to be done to get the basket back down for more clothes, they will just sit in the basket.
Right now, I am totally caught up but Hubby is removing the washer and drier Friday night to start ripping out the floors and to hopefully put in the new ones. So from Friday until we finally get enough new floor in to put them back, I will be machineless. Can you say panic! Luckily the kids and I are on Fall Break next week, so we can wash like crazy and hopefully get it all put away. But I am like you, I always start with the white clothes because that’s where all those socks are. I hate socks. I tried to convince Hubby that permanent tatoos on each of the kids feet would look fine and keep them warm in winter. 😉 Unfortunately, he didn’t buy it.
The second load is always towels because we never have enough clean ones. Then my sheets because I hate smelly sheets. Then we can work through the regular clothes one kid at a time.
Hopefully I won’t be more than a week behind, so it will be like we’ve just been on vacation.