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Friday, April 8, 2011

The Secret of the Three Baskets

Baskets by Ziggi Ziggi

It's the age-old question: Should a laundry room be downstairs or upstairs? Well, maybe not an age-old old question, but didn't you think of it when you were looking for a home?  We sure did.  If it's upstairs, you take the risk of the washer leaking and soaking through your ceiling.  If it's downstairs, it's probably a long walk from the bedroom.  

When we built our home, my husband probably thought more about the hundreds of dollars it would cost us to fix our ceiling than the hundreds of trips I'd make up and down the stairs.  Totally fine, I need the exercise. So our laundry room is downstairs.  That means lugging laundry down and up the stairs is a several times a week routine.  

I had to figure out some kind of system so make this easier.  I'm constantly trying to figure out how to do the tasks around the house more efficiently. This is what I came up with:

We have three laundry baskets (not including our lights/darks hamper in the laundry room.  One basket stays in our master bedroom, one stays on top of the washer, and one "floats."  The bedroom basket is where we toss our clothes.  The washing machine basket houses clean clothes, and the floater basket carries clothes up and down (and any other items around the house that need transportation).

And here's the process: When the floater basket happens to be upstairs, any dirty clothes from the bedroom basket (whether it's full or not) goes into the floater.  When we are ready to go downstairs (no extra special trips allowed), the dirty clothes are emptied into the laundry room hamper.  When clothes are clean they are emptied into the washing machine basket, folded, and loaded into the floater.  Then, when we are ready to go upstairs (no special trips allowed), the clean clothes are put away.  Then the floater is already upstairs readily waiting for its next refill. 

We also use the floater for any items that need to go downstairs or upstairs.  We use the same process.  It helps me stay on top of things a little at a time.  This way, I'm not hauling loads worth of clothes up and down the stairs.  It works for me!

Here are some snazzy baskets I found online, just for your entertainment:





3 comments :

  1. Thanks for visiting my blog!

    Our only two story house had the laundry upstairs and I loved it. All the bedrooms were up there so it was really convenient. Luckily, we never had a leak. But I did worry about that. :)

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  2. I would just be so happy to have my family find any laundry basket instead of the bathroom floor. The concept of laundry organization sounds so lovely though. I would think maybe three baskets would at least help those odds. -Laura visitng from ricracrabbit.com

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  3. Love your system! Some of our clients have their laundry room downstairs, but they have a laundry chute in their master bathroom. It's quite convenient when changing sheets and such.

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