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Scheduling: Laundry Routine – Part 2 of 4

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Removing stains from children’s clothing is always an interesting topic. You have probably heard so many solutions on how to get clothes clean. Some have worked, and others do not.

Until a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser for clothing is made, I will continue with my tried and true method for removing stains. 🙂

In this series on my organized laundry routine, I shared last week, in step one, how my family prepares throughout the week for laundry day. Towards the end of the week, I begin step two.

 STEP TWO: Pre-treating soiled clothing

The items in my toddler’s hamper that need pretreatment are taken down to the mud sink in our garage. To remove stains from our clothes, I follow this routine:

    • Turn on the hot water in our mud sink,
    • Place one or two scoops of powdered OxiClean in the water,
    • Wait for the OxiClean to dissolve,
    • Put each clothing item into the solution separately, and
    • Leave the clothes in the sink for a few hours to a few days.

By pre-treating the soiled clothing before beginning any loads of laundry, I can add these soaked items to their appropriate colored load on laundry day. The OxiClean solution usually releases all the stains from the clothing. In the event that a stain remains, I will treat the spot with Shout or Spray ‘n Wash before tossing in the washing machine.

These stain-releasing options have served my family well in our laundry routine. Next week, I will continue this series with the events on laundry day.

Question: What products do you use to release stains from your clothing? Please add your answer to the comments.

Scheduling: Laundry Routine – Part 1 of 4

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Photograph Credit: Flickr (Sarah QFD)

With five family members in our house, our washer and dryer get used a number of times each week. Usually I perform laundry tasks on two consecutive days.

During this season of my life, laundry is done on Friday/Saturday, Saturday/Sunday, or Sunday/Monday. The days depend on when we are home or able to work around our other activities.

I know many find doing one load of laundry from start to finish a day helps keep the laundry pile at bay. This option would not work for me since everyday has a different schedule and working around laundry is not a priority for me.

Knowing that the laundry will be done on the weekend, frees me up during the week for other activities. What works for me may or may not work for you. This system is working for me now and may be a solution to doing laundry all week long.

By having a scheduled, organized laundry routine, I find my time is best spent in small sections. The more I follow the same routine, the more efficient I become. My routine consists of four steps:

Step one: Preparing throughout the week,

Step two: Pretreating soiled clothing,

Step three: Preparing on laundry day, and

Step four: Performing laundry tasks.

In the next four weeks, I will cover my organized laundry routine in the hopes you will be encouraged to take a break from doing laundry all week long.

STEP ONE: Preparing throughout the week

During the week, each family member deposits dirty or used clothes into their assigned hamper.

    • My two older children have a mesh hamper in their closet.
    • My husband and I have two laundry baskets in our closet. The dark blue basket holds dark items, and the white basket holds white and light colored items.
    • My toddler has a hamper in her nursery. Any soiled clothes that need pretreatment are added to this hamper. Since my children are messy eaters and enjoy the dirt and mud on the playground, I have a number of items that need to be pretreated each week.

As each family member deposits his or her own clothing into the appropriate laundry containers, I am able to concentrate on other items throughout the week. Besides the occasional stray sock or blanket, almost all the items are in the laundry baskets or hampers each day.

By using time wisely to train my family on my laundry routine, I can rest assured that all items are where they belong. As each member of our family does his or her job throughout the week, my tasks are lightened on laundry day. I will not need to search the house for loose items of clothing. By preparing throughout the week, I save myself time and energy on laundry day.

Question: Where do your family members place their clothing items that need to be washed? Please add your answer to the comments.

Organizing: Children’s Clothing – Applying the Process

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After completing the organizational project of my youngest daughter’s clothing, I proceeded to follow the same five steps to organize my older children’s closet and dresser. I started with their summer clothes and shoes, and began the process one step at a time.

Step One: Prepare

The totes were brought into the hallway by hubby. The sharpie, labels, and plastic bags were already in the hallway.

Step Two: Purge

All the out-grown and summer clothing was taken from the closet and dresser and neatly folded and placed in piles.

Step Three: Pack

The piles of clothing were neatly packed into totes labeled with the gender, size, and type of clothing (i.e. Girls, 3T, summer).

Step Four: Place

The winter clothing was then unpacked, washed, and placed in the closet and dresser.

Step Five: Preserve

Any remaining items were stored in labeled totes and preserved in storage for a future date.

The process went much quicker for my older children than it did for my youngest daughter. My guess is due to all the totes and supplies previously gathered, and my mindset was already in an organizational mode.

   

Before                                                                         After

After completing the project, I decided to improve their closet space by adding the storage bins I found on sale at Target. I loved the transformation. This project concludes the clothing swap for my children from summer to winter. Now to decide what my next project will be. Happy organizing!

Question: What is your current household organizational project? Please add your answer to the comments.

Organizing: Children’s Clothing – Part 5 of 5

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We have reached my favorite part of the process: clean up. When I am in the midst of a project, I spread out and the clutter explodes before the project is complete. It really does get worse before it gets better when I am organizing. However, the final product is so worth the few days of disaster.

In organizing my children’s clothing, I have addressed preparing (Step 1), purging (Step 2), packing (Step 3), and placing (Step 4). The final step is preserving the unused items for another time.

STEP FIVE: Preserve

By the time I have placed all the “new” items in the closet and dresser, I am ready to clean up my upstairs hallway and return it to a clean, empty space.

Though I am the one who organizes the clothing items, my husband is definitely involved. Just need to give a shout out for my fabulous hubby. He helps move the totes to and from storage, label the totes, and pack up the donation items. What a great guy! 🙂

Filled Totes

All the filled totes remain stacked in the hallway until the laundry is complete. As I fold the loads of laundry, I check to be sure I have packed away all smaller-sized clothing. When the laundry is complete and all the items have been added to the correct tote, I will let Paul know that I am finished with those totes. He will check to be sure all totes are labeled, carry them to our storage closet, and place them on the shelves.

Empty Totes

Usually I will have a couple of empty totes from the clothing I am currently using. The empty totes are stacked and ready to be taken to the garage and added to the empty storage totes. When I organize the clothing again in the spring, I can locate these labeled totes to refill.

Donations

All the items in the donation pile are packed in plastic bags and taken to the garage. Usually the items stay in the garage until I plan a trip to the donation container. But now that we have a neighbor with children younger than my three, Paul delivered all the bags to them. This situation was a win-win situation since they could use the items, we did not need to store the bags, and I did not need to make a trip to the donation center.

Car

With the newer clothing available, I chose one outfit complete with socks, shoes, and a diaper, packed these in a bag, and placed them in the trunk of the car. You never know when you (or someone you know) will need that extra outfit.

Supplies

As Paul moves the totes to their locations, I gather up the remaining supplies (i.e., sharpies, labels, plastic bags, etc.) and return them to their home. I then dust the hallway ledge and run the vacuum.

At the end of my five-step process, the smaller-sized clothing is out of sight, the new-sized clothing is clean and placed in the closet and dresser, and the room and hallway are clean. The project takes a few days to complete with lots of interruptions in between, but the final product is worth the time spent organizing my children’s clothing.

As you continue using time wisely, remember to break your project into small segments that can be completed in short amounts of time. By plugging away a little here and there, you will be thrilled with your final product. Keep up the great work as you continue organizing!

Question: Where do you store your children’s clothing? Please add your answer to the comments.

Organizing: Children’s Clothing – Part 4 of 5

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Finished Closet

Have you finished updating your closets with your fall and winter clothing? I am almost completely done. The clothing for my youngest daughter and my son are complete.

Where my daughters receive hand-me-downs from their cousin, my tall son, who is about the same size as his cousin that is 2 years older, does not have an abundance of clothing items. Besides under garments, socks, and tights, my daughters’ closets and dressers are fully stocked.

To keep up with my growing son when hand-me-downs are few, I keep a close eye on sales, especially at the end of each season. In fact, I just ordered my son more clothing items during The Children’s Place sale since his fall/winter wardrobe was quite lean.

Though I am currently working on my oldest daughter’s closet, I have completed these steps for all of my children’s apparel: Step 1 – Prepare, Step 2 – Purge, and Step 3: Pack. The next step I am currently working on is Step 4: Place.

STEP FOUR: Place

Beginning this step with a semi-empty closet and dresser, I located the bin with the appropriate label. For my youngest daughter, I needed the 18-month to 2T winter items. Upon locating the tote, I unpacked the items one at a time, placing them either on a hanger for the closet or in a drawer of her dresser.

Closet

For items in her closet, I organize by color and type of clothing. The bottom rod includes her long-sleeved shirts, overalls and outfits, long-sleeved onesies, turtlenecks, shirts with jackets, and sweaters and sweatshirts. The top rod includes her short-sleeved shirts and dresses.

1. Each of these sections is organized by hanger color:

Bottom Rod:

      • Pink hangers: Long-sleeved shirts
      • Purple hangers: overalls and outfits
      • Pink hangers: long-sleeved onesies
      • Green hangers: turtlenecks
      • Clear hangers: shirts with jackets
      • Pink hangers: sweaters and sweatshirts

Top Rod:

      • Clear hangers: short-sleeved shirts
      • Green hangers: dresses

2. Each of these sections is then organized by clothing color in order of the rainbow:

      • Pinks
      • Reds
      • Oranges
      • Yellows
      • Greens
      • Blues
      • Purples
      • Browns
      • Blacks
      • Whites

Now this type of organization may be too organized for you. For me, having all the clothing in order makes putting laundry away a breeze. The hanger is already in its place, and I just need to play a simple matching game: match the clothing item with its correct hanger.

In using time wisely, this system has served me well. Laundry is not a daunting task because every space is already organized and ready for the items to be replaced. Having a designated place for each item is my best tip for using time wisely.

Dresser

My daughter’s dresser has 6 drawers which I have designated for different items:

      1. Socks, tights, and under garments
      2. Smallest sized clothing, i.e. her 18-month outfits, pants, and pajamas
      3. Largest sized clothing, i.e., her 2T outfits, pants, and pajamas
      4. More space for 2T clothing items
      5. Empty – As she grows out of items, I place them in this drawer. When it is time to repeat this process in the spring, I will have a head start on purging her wardrobe. Having a place for smaller items that is out of sight helps keep her room clutter-free and organized.
      6. Next sized clothing – If I purchase additional items in the next size, I will add these clothes to this drawer.
Shoes

After growing out of her size 4 shoes, I placed the size 5 shoes into her changing table drawer. These shoes were in another tote labeled “girls shoes sizes 1-5.”

Donations

If I find items that I do not love or would not place on my daughter, I add it to the donation pile.

At the end of this fourth step, my daughter’s closet, dresser, and shoe drawer have been filled. Knowing what she has helps me know what items she is missing. Being the second girl in our family with my older daughter’s hand-me-downs, her wardrobe is usually complete, like it was at end of this step. Next week, I will conclude the fifth step in my “organizing my children’s clothing” project. Until then . . . happy organizing!

Question: How do you organize the clothing in your closets? Feel free to post a picture with your answer.