Laundry Routine
Do you use a clothes dryer for anything and everything? Nothing? Somewhere in between?
The laundry-in-a-day method works beautifully for some people, including some very good friends of mine, but not for me. A lot of people in the decluttering world recommend having a laundry day, but when you’re minimizing clothes and hang drying almost all of them this does not work. So I suppose this blog post is about being a minimalist and environmentalist!
I hang dry and use my dryer but it seems like I’m using my dryer less and less each day now. I use it for underwear, bedding and towels, and kids PJ’s. All of our workout clothes, jeans and shirts, wool socks, and nicer kids items I hang dry. All this to say, I don’t have a laundry room the size of a living room with enough space to hang dry all of our clothing so I have to stagger my loads. I usually do 2-3 loads of laundry a day, usually one that hang dries and one in the dryer. I do a workout gear load every 3 days or so, a whites load, a normal clothes load, each kid gets their own load, 3 or so towel loads a week, and multiple sheets loads per week because night time potty training is rough! And then there’s the random loads like my Ruggable rug, curtains, pillowcases from the couch, etc.
Originally I started line drying when we realized wool socks shrunk in the dryer and same with jeans and shirts. But now I know that it’s way more environmentally friendly to line/hang dry clothes than to use a dryer. I also have started washing most everything on cold instead of warm or hot.
In the summer I line dry everything outside which is my absolute favorite especially in the morning. But obviously when living in rainy Olympia, WA that is not physically possible 8 months a year.
The past few years I have just used my folding laundry dryer outside along with hangers on the back of our patio furniture but last year we finally figured out a good spot for the clothesline to go after building a little patio area (blog post to come on that one) and it’s been hugely helpful especially since I can now dry sheets outside.
I have a drying rack on the back of my laundry room door that I use constantly, we installed a bar in the laundry room that I use alongside the doorframes and the drying octopus from IKEA is one of my favorites! When I get a little behind on laundry or all summer long I use this Ikea drying rack, I love how small it stores and that it’s white. I use this primarily for socks, hello Darn Tough, but also for smaller workout items (cycling gloves, leg warmers, etc) and swim suits.
I am also in the middle of a modified Project 333 so my wardrobe is much more limited than it normally is and part of that is being on top of my laundry. I have also started buying less kids clothes than I normally do so laundry intentionality is the name of the game in my house.
What about you? Do you dry everything in a machine and you can’t imagine doing what I do? Or maybe you haven’t owned a dryer in 10 years and me even using one still seems odd. Is your primary reason for line drying financially or environmentally motivated or something else?
