Every Saturday, and only Saturday, morning-we each drag our hamper to the closet and pick up the towels from the kitchen and bathroom on the way. First load is a bathroom towel, all the wash cloths and my first load of colors. As I dig out the colors, I drop the whites by the hampers on the floor. Next load is my other darks (again, dropping whites on the floor), with the other bathroom towel and the kitchen hand towels. He does his two color loads and the last all white load.

After they dry, I pull out all of the load, take it to the bedroom and shake out the clothes laying them down on the bed with all my dress clothes lain so that the seams stay seams, and on the bottom, with tee shirts on the top, covering the very clean clothes. The foldable clothes I toss to the side. The dark colored kitty sits on the hang up clothes. Of course she has no desire to sit on things that won't wrinkle! I move her when I do the second load and then move her back to the top when I am done. I hang them if I get around to, and I don't if I don't. Usually no later than Sunday night.

He pulls out his loads as they finish, and brings them into the living room, tossing them to the top of the couch beside him. Then, he pulls out his dress clothes and hangs those up immediately. He folds while watching tv. Does it again with his second load. The whites we usually finish together. He's more particular than I. He folds all his undershirts and puts them in a pile. All his dress socks in a pile. All his pjs in a pile... heaven forbid any of the piles intermingle.

Neither of us goes out in wrinkled clothes (actually, I iron mine with starch on Sunday night, for the week) or covered in cat fur. I consider that an accomplishment! Typcially, we both receive kudos on how we look, so really, I'm just kidding. Especially him. Dork that he is (he attends a public school that doesn't require uniforms, but is full of science/math geeks), he wears a suit to school every day. Why? Dunno. He likes to look suave.

I work from home so I do laundry when it's needed. We have a three compartment hamper. One is just for hubby's work clothes, one for lights/whites, one for darks. I do the piles on the floor from each basket, if needed. Sometimes there are lightweight clothes that get washed separate from other things. I wash his work clothes Sat AM. Workout clothes get tossed in the wash right after I'm done. Everything gets hung on an indoor drying rack to dry. No ironing unless it's dress shirts.

I use All Free and Clear HE. I can't stand scented stuff. Have been using it for years now. I started using Wisk Deep Clean HE for his work clothes because of the dirt and sweat. It's scented so I have to run the washer through a cleaning cycle to get rid of any excess. I have Whirlpool Duet 9400 front loader (9+ years old).

When my underwear gets very low, that's when I do my whites.

Darks get done when the pile gets large.

I enjoy doing laundry. The whites are in a separate hamper, the colours and darks not so much. I take the laundry down 2 flights to the laundry room and insert 6 quarters to wash.

I haven't used a dryer in years and years. In winter, the clothes are on an indoor clothes rack that gets set out on the balcony. They come in frozen, then thaw and when they're dry they get folded and put away. Hubby does the ironing.

In the summer I hang the laundry on the clothesline.

Neither of us like scented stuff, we loathe the smell of fabric softeners and heavily scented laundry detergents, so I make my own. Marilyn Sue also uses the same recipe......borax, washing soda, and Sunlight laundry bars (for we Canadians) or Zote or Fels Naptha, for the U.S. residents.

When I want to use a fabric softener I pour some vinegar in the rinse cycle.

Just me, hubby and the peke, who has bedding, so whenever it's needed. The laundry hamper is in the closet, has wheels, I roll it out to the laundry room, on the same floor, it's a ranch style house. Separate loads if needed. I use Tide, Purex, Gain, depending on whatever coupons I used..usually Purex or Gain softener, wash,dry...I have front loaders that are about 10 years old now....stack everything back in the hamper, roll it back down the hall to our bedroom, put things away, stick the hamper back in the closet.

I have a laundry bag for delicate , darks, whites and delicate whites. They go into the bag assigned so I carry one bag down at a time as needed.

If my washer were in the basement I would make me a laundry chute. No way, would I haul it down AND up. :)

but mine is in the garage.

I usually do two loads a week. One lights, one darks. Since it is only me, there isn't much to separate more. Oh, lets not forget towels. I wash them less often, I always wait till I am out, or there is to much in the hamper. I wash towels and washrags separate from other laundry.

I do hand-washables too. Those, when ever I run out.

I sort on my guest room floor, drag to the garage, wash, put in basket go outside and hang up on the line.

After drying I put back in the basket, haul inside, and fold and put away while I watch TV.

Really not much different than when I was married, just less sorting/piles.

Moni

I kinda wash laundry as needed. When my favorite under ware is all in the hamper.... it's time. (DH could outfit an Army!) I usually start with whites...then his darks, then my darks.... separate because his are "pilly" like sweats, mine more delicate. He (like others) is very fussy about how his undershirts and t-shirts are folded (OCD-like), under ware too, so he folds and puts away his clothing. I have added those miserable "compression hose" to my weekly (or so) ritual...bummer. Hand washing takes all the fun out of laundry day! BTW, I am still "paying" for when DS washed a bathroom rug with MY pants.... all those poly fibers are impossible to remove. Now, I hide my pants...and tops.
Sheets and towels are usually done separately.

I used to use Kirkland "free" laundry soap, last month I decided to try the Tide (free) pods. I think DS was using way to much soap and the pods have lasted longer.

I'm fortunate that my laundry room is right off the kitchen since I tend to do laundry whenever I have enough for a load. We don't have a hamper in the bedroom or bath so each morning we take our dirty clothes down to the hamper in the laundry room.

When I change the sheets I simply roll them into a ball and toss them down the stairs- much easier than carrying them. I have a counter in the laundry room where I fold the clothes and stack them. In the evening DH and I carry the folded clothes back upstairs.

I go up and down three flights of stairs for laundry. I have a little cubby hole in an entertainment center in my bedroom for laundry. When it fills up, it's enough for one load and laundry gets done. I only wear long, light dresses, so only every couple of weeks or so.

There's just DH and me. Our closets are opposite one another across a short hallway between MBR and bath. My closet has one hamper; his has two. (I put my 'darks' in his 'darks' hamper.)

Then we wait for our 3-year-old DGD to visit. She loves to 'do laundry' with Grandma.

No, really, I wash about every five/seven days. I strip the bed before breakfast and put any whites needing bleach in the laundry sink while sheets wash on 'hot'. Sheets go into the dryer. Towels and other whites go into the washer on 'hot'. By the end of breakfast, sheets go back on the bed and whites into the dryer. Darks go into the washer on 'warm', and then to the dryer. I fold whites and darks from the top of our bed and hang other things in our closets...done!

Single story house w/laundry in back hallway. I use only Tide Free granular detergent with white vinegar in the 'softener' dispenser. Bottom-of-the-line Frigidaire front load washer is nine and dryer is 13.

Like Glenda, one of my laundry alerts is a dwindling supply of panties in my underwear drawer. Our Westie is another alert. When he starts bringing us socks out of DH's open-top laundry basket, it's time to wash.

I like doing laundry, probably because it doesn't require a lot of skill or effort, and the result is both rewarding and predictable. :-)

Some years ago I moved my laundry machines from the basement to the first floor. It was a good move.

Because I have free electricity from 7:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m., I do my laundry between these hours. That took a bit of an adjustment, but after a year I'm used to it now. I haven't had a setup to dry laundry outdoors in several years, so it's nice to be able to run my electric dryer for free.

I love my Speed Queen top-load washer. I'm less enthusiastic about my dryer, but have no major complaints.

I hate doing laundry because at the end of it I know I have to match socks which I hate doing.

My DH and I have the same laundry basket and my sons each have one. If dirty laundry isn't in the laundry basket it doesn't get done because I don't hunt for dirty laundry. I don't do laundry on a regular day but I do all the laundry on one day, probably every 4-5 days (unless I run out of running gear and then I'll do a load)

I separate it in the laundry room and I now keep hangars down there. And then just do up the loads. A lot of our clothes I do hang dry but not underwear or jeans.
The clothes and towels that are in the dryer I take out and fold right away and put them where they belong.

The underwear, refer to hating matching socks, could sit in the laundry basket for a week and when people are looking for clean socks/underwear then I will sort that. I have learned to put a towel on top of that laundry because the cats love to sleep in the clean laundry basket. Nothing like long black fur all over the underwear.

I use Tide Free HE. Too many allergies to fragrances and the Tide Free is perfect.

Does the white vinegar actually work as a fabric softener? What loads do you put it in. Would it work in a High Efficiency washing machine?

Laundry isn't quite the same non-issue now as it used to be, not since buying energy efficient washer and dryer. I wish I could understand how running a load for triple the time saves energy - I do realize it uses less water.

I bought Maytag HE top loader a year ago, wish I had my old one back ;) Load of whites placed in the machine comes up as 79 minutes on the reader board. I don't have a way to shorten the time, adjust the settings, even open the darned lid with the automatic lock they've added ;)

Laundry gets done as needed. I have a hamper in a master bedroom closet for my lingerie, tops and things. There is a built in hamper in the laundry room and that's where most of the household stuff, towels, normally soiled things go. I have a plastic lidded bin in the garage that DH's really muddy things will go into....yes, he gets that dirty doing forestry engineering, too dirty to put his clothes into a heavy built-in-to-the cabinetry wooden hamper.

Some of his things go through a spin and rinse before I wash them. If they are really bad, I hand them to him and say 'garden hose', and he takes them outside. This isn't new, he's worked outdoors 45 years and loves it, loves his work and enjoys himself after all these years.

Really, I love my laundry room. Deep sink, folding counters (one larger) lots of built in cabinets (almost as many as my former kitchen), built in ironing board. I iron only rarely, but he does. I refuse to crease jeans and he wants them creased (to pull on raingear and tromp around in the woods) so he irons. No stairs, this house is one long level walk from one end to the other.

I have two sets of Maytags HE top loaders and I like them both. I have one set on the lower level for things down there which is mostly kitchen stuff and the upper level for the rest of the laundry. No set time to do it, sometimes when I go up and get ready for bed, which is fairly early. I make my own soap like Jasdip does and have for many years now. I have not hung laundry out for some years, but I used to all the time, diapers and all. The kitchen stuff gets thrown into the washer till I feel I have a load of it to do. The other upstairs goes in the hamper and do it when I find time. Sort it where the washer and dryer are, our large bathroom. I like a washer and dryer on each level at my age.

Sue

Interesting that the majority of you are so loosey-goosey about doing laundry. No particular day and do it whenever it needs to be done, like when there isn't a clean stitch in the house! That has been my method for years, but I always thought everyone else was so organized and scheduled.

I'd give anything to get the washer and dryer out of the basement. That traipsing up and down is killing me. I can;t tell you how often the wash gets stinky because I did not feel like going back down there to put it in the dryer. If by some miracle the last load makes it into the dryer, I have to dry it three times to get all the wrinkles out after it sits in there for a week.

If I have to, I may get a stacked washer dryer in the master closet. What a pleasure that would be although I would then be short of closet space.

I can't imagine having the motivation to make my own detergent. I can barely stand to buy the stuff. I may give those pods a try.

Having a laundry room would be heaven, although having laundry facilities of every floor would be the best of all!

I always do my major laundry on Saturday mornings. I'll do a load in the middle of the week if we've run short of something, though.

I have a roller-hamper in my bathroom that most of the dirty clothes are in. I strip the bed and throw the sheets on top of the full hamper, then roll it down the hall to the laundry. Sheets are washed first, then into the dryer and then right back on the bed.

There is a pass-through "window" between the laundry room and the master bedroom closet. It has a ledge big enough to set a laundry basket on, and that's where DH's underwear and sox live. Actually, he could put them away in his dresser, but he's too lazy so they just live in that basket. No big deal to me - I'm not going to put them away for him!

Next to the pass-through there's a hanging rod in the laundry room to hang all our shirts, slacks, etc., right after coming out of the dryer. I can hang them there on hangers and then walk around into the closet and reach through to transfer them into the closet. Easy peasy.

Always use Tide. And generic store brand dryer sheets. Both UNscented.

No set day...just when I get to it or running low. Laundry room is off the kitchen. It's just me and DH and we have baskets. DH usually brings baskets up and down the steps for me. I sort on the kitchen floor as thr LR is too small. We both do laundry, but I probably do it a little more frequently. I'm not fussy...basically whites/lights and Darks/colors. I do heavy stuff together like jeans, towels, sweatshirts. Sheets are also done separately. DH does make me a little crazy sometimes when he does laundry....he'll do jeans with light stuff like dress socks or hankies..then when the load is done and the jeans aren't dry, he'll drape them over chairs....uh....why don't you just stick them back in the dryer for 15 minutes?! Lol....I never use fabric softener and I cut dryer sheets in half....works just as well and a box lasts a lot longer. I'm not particular about detergent but stick with the major brands...Tide, Cheer, All, etc. I have noticed a difference with the cheaper brands. I have an LG top loader and the cycles do take longer than my old machine but it does have a speed wash cycle I use sometimes.

I have a stack washer dryer off my MB and I do two loads a week for myself. My husband does all his in the basement laundry and brings it upstairs and folds it and I put them away plus iron the shirts. I only use Clear detergent, can't stand smells. I have a table for folding and I use my magic folder which makes it a breeze to have the clothes folded to perfection which I love. The utube link is below. It's actually fun to do and it makes my closet so organized. It takes me less than two hours to have them washed, dried and folded or ironed and put away.

Here is a link that might be useful: folding thingee

I try to do the laundry on Mondays. Baskets are loaded up and taken to the basement and I sort there. I have a long homemade bench with 4 baskets on it, whites, colors, darks and reds. Generally there are 4 to 5 loads but with gardening season, it may jump up with muddy hand towels.

The soap is Kirkland liquid for the front loader. I also cut the fabric softener in half with water as it is not good for clothing. All fab bleach, reg. bleach and Oxiclean or borax are added. Towels only get soap and vinegar to soften.

For clothing, once the load is done in the washer, it goes into the dryer on medium heat for about 3 minutes then taken out and placed on hangers to dry. They are dry either the same day or the next morning and no ironing is needed. Only towels, bed sheets and small items are dryer'd.

But the best part is that Dad does all sheets!

I do one load per day, depending on which pile is largest (or what we're out of). I sort by color ---- darks, lights, towels, underwear/socks.

We do NOT re-use towels or washcloths. One use and in the hamper they go.

On Saturday or Sunday I'll do two-to-three loads. Our washer/dryer are in the basement, and our bedroom is on the second floor.

I make my own detergent (washing soda, soap, borax, water), which costs me less than $6/year.

Its just me...and I'm an organization freak. I do laundry on Wednesday. I get up..strip the bed..put the load of sheets in first. I collect the empty hangers from the closet...take them to the laundry closet. Light colors next..then darks. Last load is whites. I fold..hang...and put each load away as it finishes. Afterwards I reward myself with a drink...usually a glass of Spatlese.

I do laundry on Wednesdy.....like aunt_audrey. 3 loads. I haul it all down by hand, no basket. The wicker baskets are "IN" the laundry room. I use the baskets to haul laundry "up" the stairs.

The jeans go in first, 6prs per load. I hang them to dry overnight. DH wears heavy denim, not like myself. Then permanent press, any color gets thrown in next. Sheets last. I have a BIG slop sink for my little red rug from India which isn't color fast. I lay a mesh drying rack on top of the dryer for it and underwire bras.

I have to have a schedule as DH and I live apart during the week due to work. DH comes home Friday night and brings his laundry so I sort it into the two hampers in the laundry room- one for lights and one for darks- and put the dark load on first as there are more heavy items in the dark load that need more drying time. Then the lights, and then sheets/towels. I iron what needs ironing while watching TV Saturday night after dinner and DH can take all his stuff back to work Sunday evening.
Mid week I usually do a darks load as my work uniforms are dark and I don't have enough for a full week of work.

I do laundry on Sunday.

I hate having to haul my laundry to the apt complex laundry room! It's out the door, down six stairs, a little walkway, down six more stairs, down a little walkway, down 4 more stairs, around a corner, up 5 stairs to the laundry room. Then, back the other way when the laundry is done.

I finally got a luggage dolly to put the laundry basket on. It took a little getting used to, so it didn't topple over when I went up and down the stairs, but now I love it.

I haul all the laundry down in one load, sort it as I put it into the machines. One with his jeans, one with darks, and one with lights. Drop 6 quarters in each machine. Go back to the apt for a half hour. Go back down, put it into two dryers, drop 5 quarters in each machine, then back to the apt for about an hour. Back down and fold jeans into the bottom of the basket. Shake out the things that need to be hung up and lay them on the table, the small stuff just gets put into the basket unfolded. I lay all the things that need to be hung up over the top of the basket so they don't get wrinkled, and haul it all back up to the apt. We put it away together. Me, hanging things in the closet, and him folding the small stuff.

I'm not particular about detergent, but I do add fabric softener.

I'd forgotten ways I've done laundry in the past. Y'all reminded me. I have flung it down the stairs when we lived in a two story. I have had to go to the apartment complex facility and it was more than a few stairs... it was all the way at the bottom of a huge hill. Also had to wash our cars down there, so I usually did them at the same time. Scent free here too. Highly allergic, especially to Tide which my mom used all my growing up years.

I only wash on a specific day to limit washing. I just want a break from it!

I do laundry as needed. I do sort lights and darks. I also do some hand-washing of delicates. Plus some things are dry-clean-only. I do things as they come up. I hate it when I have no clean wash-cloths or socks.

I do our laundry on Thursdays. I get up, I strip the bed and putt the sheets on to wash with SCENTED Tide or Gain and either Snuggle or Downey fabric softener. I separate the clothes. The towels & such get washed next, but no fabric softener. Next comes the darks, then the mediums and lastly the whites in case I need to use bleach or Biz on them. I hang ALL shirts & sweaters, I either hang them on the rod in the laundry room or on the garage door roll up bars. Never dry bras they get hung by strap on one of the six doorknobs surrounding the laundry room.I try my best to transfer & hang up on hangers as soon as they have finished washing. The things that do get dried I toss a 1/4 of a dryer sheet in with them...Molly does her laundry usually on Tuesday. Sam will probably do his laundry on Saturday or Sunday once he comes home starts working...

I am a heathen! I don't separate at all but rather wash everything together with the only limits being how much I can stuff in the washer. :) Everything turns out fine, but I don't have any fussy clothes at all and our clothes don't get too dirty to start with so I'm sure that factors in. I probably do the laundry once every two weeks or so, but when I do it's almost our full wardrobes, lol.

Our laundry room is on our main floor, and in our next house i'm going to make sure it's upstairs. I hate hauling laundry up and down (and only one flight, I don't know how some of you with 2+ flights do it!)

I'm surprised to see some 'no sorting' above - I do sort, with today's fabrics and the price of clothes, I feel I have to.

But I have quite a bit of 'dark'. My jeans, some casual pants, tops that are my every day go to's are black. And my socks. I wear Dansko clogs with socks much of the time, with black jeans, its black socks. I turned to Woolite for Darks formula for those things a few years ago and think it really does preserve the color, helps keep things from graying out, fading. I buy it at Costco in the mega jug.

Just remembered when we were renovating, for about eight months I had to load my laundry into the car every Monday, along with the laundry detergent and anything else, and take it with me to work to wash in the machine there. Then at the end of work, bring it home and hang it on a bunch of clothes horses in the living room, cycling things around as they dried. A real pain in the patootie.

The only sorting I do is to separate my clothes and bedding from the cats' bedding and my microfiber cleaning cloths.

The price of clothing isn't much of a factor since most of mine comes from the Salvation Army. ;-)

When the hamper is full, it's time to do the laundry. I carry the hamper to the laundry room which is right off of the kitchen and pile in all of the whites or all of the darks. When that load is done, I do the next one. If there's too many darks or too many whites I just save some for a different load in the future. I usually toss used kitchen towels on top of the dryer and when I have enough of those for a load if I add in bath towels, I do them any old time.

If I had to go down stairs to do my laundry, I would probably toss each load down the stairs, then walk down and fetch it, or place everything on a sheet grab all the corners and drag it all down!

We are a family of five adult sized people. I do wash just about every day, usually more load than one, Dh and I have one hamper in our main floor master bedroom. The two teems share a hamper outside the upstairs bathroom, and the 21 y.o. does her own laundry. She does it exactly like Chi83!

I sort it all downstairs usually a 3 bin hamper. When the bins get full, I get to work! My loads are-white, towels, coloreds, and DH's dress shirts. Some stuff goes in the dryer, more than half goes outside to dry either hanging from the celling fans on the patio of hanging on one of three drying racks. Towels always go in the dryer-I like soft fluffy towels-they get washed after each use. DH's and my things get folded on top of the dryer and put away quickly. The kids goes in a basket which I put away. I use Jasdips laundry detergent. Have been for many years. Morz8's laundry room sounds great! Mine is too small. When the time comes to replace my top loader Maytag, not sure about a HE. HAd one for a couple of weeks once that was returned as defective within 2 weeks-I liked how much 'dryer' the clothes were that came out of it, but hated the long load times. I do loads back to back frequently.

blfenton -- IMO people use too much soap, and it gets left in the wash. Softeners just add more goop. The white vinegar gets any remaining soap out. I put 1/4 cup Tide Free in the soap dispenser of my front load and 1/4 cup white vinegar in the 'softener' dispenser.

Liquid detergents and 'softeners' have the liquifiers and preservatives common to all liquid soaps and lotions. (Without these, the contents would grow mold and solidify.) These additives can build up in the washer. I don't want to spread goopy 'softener' onto my freshly washed laundry, and I do want to get all the soap out. I think I learned to tear the dryer sheets in half from the KT!

I also leave my front load washer's door and dispenser slots open a bit to dry out between uses.

You can test for residual soap. Next time you have a load of towels, don't put any soap in the wash water. If you see suds once the agitator starts, that's soap coming out of the towels. A soap-free towel feels soft out of the dryer. One with soap left in it feels stiff, and it won't absorb water well when you dry with it.

I do darks last because I pretreat stains with Oxi-Clean. That can be working while I run sheets, then whites.

We re-use bathroom towels. We're *clean* when we dry off, and towels dry completely on towel rods in the bathroom. (Two of our rods are directly over floor heat registers. I'd take credit for planning that, but it was just luck.) We do change wash cloths, but dry them before adding them to the laundry basket.

If you dump used towels and wash cloths into a hamper, don't they get smelly? I've never washed *every day*, even when DS was living at home.

Doing laundry today is such a big *nothing*! I grew up helping my mother with a small capacity wringer washer in a dark basement. We pinned up wash on clotheslines -- in the basement in rainy weather and out in the back yard on a whirligig in good weather. I carried many a load of heavy, wet wash up the basement stairs. (We did have a laundry chute with openings in the kitchen and upstairs bedroom hallway.) "Pre-treating" in those days was scrubbing with Fels-Naptha bar soap on a washboard while your feet froze on the cold, wet basement floor. There was also bluing and starch water -- and tons of ironing. My mother had a mangle for sheets, but there was still plenty of stand up ironing before the easy-care fabrics of today.

Note to the folks that go up and down stairs with piles of clothing: Get yourself some of those mesh fold-up laundry baskets with the handles on them. This is much safer than holding up a basket while going down stairs. You don't have to ever fold them up btw which can be a challenge..haha! I have found these cheaper at Big Lots and other places.

Here is a link that might be useful: bed bath beyond laundry basket

This post was edited by arkansas_girl on Fri, Apr 25, 14 at 23:11

found a cheapie laundry basket with wheels and handle for me...dh can still lug his basket down (one flight) for me...my clothes are all downstairs...and yes, I hang and fold as I empty the dryer...and I separate clothes somewhat..no white loads anymore, with just dh's white socks...the only load I litterly sit by the dryer for, are his no iron dress shirts...

I am lovin' these responses. My new method of hauling the whole mess down to the basement worked well. I put the hanger stuff right on the hangers and took them up to the closet. everything else got folded into the basket and then that went upstairs, dropping off a few kitchen items along the way. Once upstairs,since everything was folded and matched, all I had to do was stuff them in the drawers and closets. Not bad! I like those net baskets with the wheels. With three of those, I could sort as I go them bump them down the stairs. I slid the plastic laundry basket down the first set of stairs but the basement stairs have too much stuff along the sides. Of course I had to carry it back up but by then it wasn't as heavy.

I have too many formerly white items that got in with the dark stuff and picked up the color to not sort.

I also know I am using too much soap. Do the clothes smell like vinegar if you use that to rinse? What is "laundry soap"? I have no idea.

I actually thought about having a heating duct turned into a laundry chute but it isn't bug enough. That would be great. My sister had one in her house. One time when I was a kid my friend and i jumped down his laundry chute and got locked in the box in basement where the clothes landed. It was attached to the ceiling and had a lock on the outside of the door. Hi mother looked very exasperated when she found us in there.

I had another friend who had a big old house in the city. It had an elevator and they used it like a laundry basket. The door was left open and everyone threw their clothes in there. Then they just lowered the clothes to the first floor and took them out for washing, folded them and returned them tot he elevator to go back upstairs. Pretty cool.

When I get a new washer I am sticking with the old fashioned top loader. It has always worked for me so why not.

Dedtired, we don't smell like a pickle, there is no lingering smell of vinegar when I use it in the rinse cycle :-)

Laundry soap.....I looked to see who mentioned it, and I can't find it. If you're asking about the laundry bar that's used to make homemade detergent, it's a bar of soap; Fels Naptha, Zote or Sunlight (in Canada). Borax and Washing soda are the other ingredients.

It takes no time to make a batch of detergent; I make both liquid and dry, using the same ingredients. One batch gets melted in hot water, the other stays in dry form in a container, and 1-2 tbsp gets added to the washer.

I can't imagine washing towels every day.....you're drying a clean body, not sure why they would need washed. Not to mention, I bought a towel from Walmart (never again), and the hem is all shredded and torn down the side. I can't imagine anyone paying full price of $11 for it.
Washing daily would only initiate the shredding faster.

I separate whites, light colors, dark colors, towels, and sheets. I have piles in the bedroom, and I take the next load down with me in a laundry basket. Then I put the clothes from the dryer on hangars or in the empty basket, bring the basket upstairs to fold, put the next load in the basket and head downstairs. I do not do the sheets and towels on the same day that I do the family wash as a rule. I like Tide and add liquid Downey to the dispenser in the washing machine. Sometimes I will continue to do laundry late at night when everyone is in bed if I was too busy during the day. Since the machines are located in the first floor laundry "room," they do not bother the family members asleep upstairs.

Now that we are empty nesters, I don't like to run small loads. We have enough underwear to go two weeks, and that helps me avoid small loads and wasting utilities. When the kids visit, especially the little grandsons, I find myself or them doing laundry more often.

Another thing about those mesh laundry hampers, you can throw the whole thing down the stairs and not worry about its hurting anything. Much easier than carrying it down. I am so lucky now...my stackable washer and dryer are in the master bathroom adjoining my bedroom. One big advantage to apartment living for me.

Memo to those of you who throw your to-be-washed goods down the stairs ...

... have you considered getting a large rubber band, to tie at the top of the stairs, and have a hook at the bottom, that you can use to hold it? That way, you could put your clothes into a bag, hook the band to it, throw it down the stairs, which would stretch the band, then hook the loop of the band into the hook at the bottom.

When it comes time to haul the clean stuff back upstairs, hook the band to the bag at the bottom, and let it help you with the hauling, for half of the rise, at least.
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Drape several shirts over edge of other bed to wear in rotation, then pile on dresser, chest of drawers when replace that set with some others, so gather them all over arm when ready to wash, underwear gets thrown into laundry basket. Wash occasionally (especially in winter, as I prefer to dry on line outside) when list of clean wearables gets low ... and I have a couple of dozen shirts and sets of underwear, some of which has put on substantial mileage during its lifetime.

Wash dress shirts, whites and coloured together, in first load in old toploader washer, adding some recently-acquired underwear it there's room, usually use large amount of water, add plain old powder detergent, less than manuf'r. recommends, sometimes some moderate bleach, no softener.

Save suds, next load is older, more stained underwear, sheets (occasionally), maybe washcloths and towels, each of which has been used numerous times.

Then, if no towels earlier, regular washable pants, often dress socks with them.

Then, in summer, shirts, overalls, coveralls, socks etc. used in garden.

Hang outside on line in three seasons, in winter run about half time for shirts, underwear in dryer, then put on hangers or drape over furniture to finish. After about half time in dryer, fold pants and hang on hanger or drape over chest of drawers.

Garden clothing gets hung on some convenient location - overalls, coveralls often on the top edge of a door.

I have 3 pair of pressure socks that I hand-wash nightly, and began washing regular socks, which I wear over them, in the same water, occasionally, especially in winter when I seldom use the washer. There are fewer of those regular socks than of the shirts and sets of underwear.

ole joyful

If I had a two-storey house (which I don't), I don't see why I'd be carrying much laundry downstairs. As soon as my dirty clothes come off and I am re-dressed, the dirty clothes get carried straight to the hampers and placed in the appropriate ones (lights/darks). Carrying one set of clothing is not onerous.
Going back everything's been separated into ironed stuff and non-ironed stuff, so the piles are not very big.

Every Friday, after we get up - DH grabs the clothes hampers sheets, towels/wash cloths, and brings them down to the laundry room, which is right off my den, and i take the kitchen linens down.

I then do the wash, and iron or touch off the rare clothing that needs it.

When it's all done - He takes them back upstairs.