Laundry Tips Everyone Needs

Laundry Tips Everyone Needs to Know

If you’re anything like me then your least favorite chore is laundry. Not because it is overly time consuming, but more because there are so many things that can go wrong in just one load. Let’s be honest, it is quite embarrassing for our husbands or sons to head to the gym only to get there and realize that their white gym socks are now in fact pink. These eight tips to easier laundry may not get the loads done any quicker, but sure will make keeping your family looking sharp so much easier!

1. Have one central laundry sorting area

For my family this is the bathroom. In your laundry sorting command center, have at least two laundry baskets; one for darks and one for whites. If you really want to get ambitious, have three; darks, lights and whites. This makes it so that gauging when things really need to be washed is a lot easier. It also cuts back on that pesky situation of a red sock mingling with the white one and cuts down on your sorting time.

 

2. Don’t sweat the stains

Goodbye yellow armpit stains! I always thought that dingy, yellowed shirts were goners and only could be remedied by purchasing a new pack. But by mixing one part dish washing liquid, two parts hydrogen peroxide and just a touch of baking soda for grit, you can easily scrub out those yellowed armpits. Use a small laundry brush to scrub and then let it sit for about an hour. Launder as usual.

 

3. Who said fruit is only good for your health?

Huge stain on a brand new white shirt? It’s a bummer, but fear not! Lemons work as an earth-friendly, non-toxic bleach so next time you stain a white, saturate the stain with fresh lemon juice and let the clothing sit out in the sun for a while. After a few hours, wash and dry as usual. Take note though, this trick only works on whites and will leave little bleach stains on colors.

 

4. Don’t shrink your clothes

It is so easy to forget about those “hang dry only” clothes that you throw in with the rest of the laundry load. To win the war against shrunken clothes, write yourself a note on top of the washer with a dry erase marker with the items that need to be taken out before they are put in the dryer. Dry erase marker wipes off super easily and this way you have a visual reminder of what needs to be separated before drying. This is especially great if you are sharing laundry duty and need to remind someone else of items that need to be taken out to hang dry.

 

5. Hang things up

Speaking of hang drying clothes, wouldn’t that whole process be easier if you had somewhere convenient to hang the clothes? Probably so. Install a bar above your washer and dryer and furnish it with plenty of hangers to meet all your hang dry only needs. Don’t feel like getting too crazy with the power tools? That’s fine. Use a simple tension rod in your laundry room and you have a quick, easy way to get all your drying quickly situated at one time.

 

6. Clean Tennis Shoes

Washing sneakers always starts with good intentions but usually ends with frustration when they aren’t dry by the next time you want to wear them. The problem with drying is that the sneakers bang around in the dryer, hitting the door and stopping the whole drying process. Next time you have to dry a pair of sneakers, tie the shoe laces together and close the dryer door with the sneakers on the inside and the knot on the outside of the dryer door. This will keep sneakers in place and your dryer going strong.

 

7. Keep socks matched

Give everyone in your family a mesh bag to put their dirty socks in and at the end of the week have them toss it in the laundry basket. This way everyone’s socks start and finish the laundry journey together and you don’t have to spend time re matching everyone’s socks.

 

8. Iron anywhere

We all know that freshly ironed clothes have a certain appeal to them but that ironing can just be so daunting. You have to drag out the ironing board and the iron and the starch. It’s a lot of work for sometimes only one or two items. Cut down on ironing time by making a DIY ironing board that fits the top of your washer or dryer. Measure the top of the unit and then head on over to your home improvement center to purchase a piece of plywood that fits in those measurements. Cover the plywood with two layers of batting and one layer of quilting cotton in the pattern of your choice and voila! Or if you are really in a hurry, use a straight iron and quickly iron out small wrinkles in no time. Happy ironing!

See how easy and useful these tips are? They may not do your laundry for you but they sure will make it a little less stressful!