Laundry

When we had all our children at home, I had all the laundry together. They're responsible for bringing their dirty clothing to the laundry pile in the main bathroom or downstairs. I don't search for dirty clothes. One child each year had the assignment of doing all the laundry, washing and drying. Sorting was supposed to be child's job also, but I ended up sorting most of the time so as not to get everything mixed up. I lined up laundry baskets in my basement, one for each child and one for parents, plus one for socks and one for towels, washcloths, and dishcloths. I tried to keep everyone wearing white socks, with black socks for my husband and sons to wear to work or with suits. My children who wanted other colors of socks could sort them out from the pile; periodically I would go through and sort the whole pile--like, once a year. I don't fold clothes, at all. I don't iron. I don't dry clean. This means the sorting is fast and easy: toss into the person's basket. If they want it folded or hung up, they can do that. Most of our clothing will not wrinkle, and the few things that do, can be fluffed in the dryer for important occasions.

I strongly advise limiting how much clothing you have. We had people practically throwing gently used clothing at us, especially when we had little children. I had to be ruthless: only a little over one week's clothing, plus an additional week of long sleeves or short sleeves (seasonal), and two sets of Sunday clothes. I used to store the clothing for the next child to grow into, but over time we had SO Much clothing go through our house, that I stopped storing it and just kept going, taking outgrown things to Goodwill.