Friday, August 24, 2012

I've come up with another hair-brained idea.

This post may be entirely TMI but you know me ... it's never stopped me before. (Honey, if you're reading this you might want to stop now!)

I'm washing clothes today. For a good time. Not really. It's just one of those mundane things that has got to happen.

Anyway, as I was in the bedroom getting the laundry hamper I had a thought or two or twenty.

1.  where do other people keep their dirty laundry? Whenever I look at photos in magazines and on the internet I don't ever see clothes hampers. Mine is kept in the bedroom, out in the open.
But apparently I am alone in this practice. I guess some people keep theirs in the closet which I can't do because there is zero room in our closet for hampers.

Others may keep them in the laundry room but I can't because all I have is a laundry closet and again, there is no room. Besides, who wants to traipse all the way across the house just to throw a dirty pair of socks in a hamper? And while I'm on this rant, who in their right mind puts a laundry closet in the kitchen? Some dumb architect who doesn't do laundry, that's who. Dumb, dumb, dumb 70's house.

2. Speaking of closets, if you're wondering about that curtain hanging on the other side of the window ... that's my own concoction that I convinced my husband to make for me. 
As mentioned before, we live in a 70's ranch home. It was built before walk-in closets were popular. Whoever designed this house thought he was being smart by putting in a closet with two doors, thought he'd lull some buyer into thinking this was adequate space for a couple. He was wrong on both accounts, he's not smart and it's not adequate space. Therefore, I convinced my husband to "build" me a closet along the back wall of our bedroom. Now, we could have done it right and framed it out, added drywall and doors, but that would have taken time, energy and more money than we had at the time. Instead, we put up a wire closet organizer and hung curtains around it to camouflage the space. Yes, it's ugly BUT it does the job and since no one should be going in our bedroom but us, who cares how it looks? Well, it does bother me somewhat and I keep thinking someday we'll fix it up right but so far, someday hasn't come.

So, where was I? Oh yeah, doing laundry.

3. As you can see I keep two hampers for me and my husband. (The boys have (had) their own hampers which are kept in their bedrooms. From around the age of eleven or so they've been responsible for washing their own clothes so I figure they should keep their hampers in their rooms. Besides if the hampers are readily available chances are there won't be dirty clothes on the floor right??? Hahahaha, I'm cracking myself up with that one). Anyway, I digress (again). There actually used to be three hampers in our room.  I "trained" my husband early on that one hamper is for whites, one is for lights, and one is for darks. And for the most part he has "followed the rules" though I complicated things awhile ago when I switched to just two hampers. I decided to only sort by lights (including whites) and darks. For some reason this switch seemed to confuse him went it came to certain colors. For instance, is the grey shirt a light or a dark garment? I've told him just pick one and I'll handle it later. In the grand scheme of things I figured if the clothes were making it into a hamper I'd won the battle and it really isn't that big of deal.

4. However, what is a big deal are the clothes that don't make it into a hamper. That, and sleep clothes. This is today's conundrum.

First of all, the subject of sleep clothes. Yes, I know this is a very personal subject. But yes, I'm going there. Assuming you sleep in something, whether it be pajamas, underwear, or an old t-shirt and shorts, the question that bears to be asked is ... do you sleep in something clean and fresh every night or do you sleep in the same clothes multiple nights? At our house we roll with multiple times so every morning my sleep clothes go on a hook in the bathroom and my husband's go on a chair beside the bed.


 Each of us is responsible for tossing them in the hamper when it's time for them to be washed. I bet you can guess where this is going. I love him more than life itself  but bless his heart, while he can change clothes and put them in the hamper he doesn't seem to be able to move dirty sleep clothes from the chair to the hamper. They pretty much stay on the chair until I, being the loving wife I am, grab them up when laundry day comes around.

Most of the time.

Some of the time.

Whenever I manage to remember.

Sadly it usually gets ignored until it starts piling up. And, it does pile up because in addition to sleep clothes there's also usually a random t-shirt, a couple pairs of socks, and who knows what else. Sitting in the chair. Setting in the chair. I don't know, I'm not the English major in this house. I guess that's what makes it all ok. He's the one with the college degree. He's the one who works hard, keeps a roof over our heads and food on the table. So, who am I to bring up a pile of dirty clothes?

and, now that I've talked in circles I'd like to bring up the main topic of today's blog. Aren't you glad I'm finally getting to the point?

5. You want to know what my dream room is? What I'd really like to do with the empty bedroom across the hall? The room that I refuse to let become a shrine to the son who's flown the coop? The room I'm just itching to do something with? I want to make it into one big gigantic closet! In addition to hanging space, there would be drawers and such that would eliminate the need for dressers and chest-of-drawers in the bedroom. There'd be plenty of room for clothes hampers and the crowning glory would be .... the washer and dryer would be in there too. Isn't that a grand idea?? Can't you just envision it now?

If you live in Gwinnett County and just heard a long, and woeful wail ... that would be my husband who didn't heed my advice and continued reading. He would NOT be as excited by this plan as me, and I'm willing to bet is running around now, coming up with 5843 reason why this would NOT be a good idea.

Chill Babe. It's okay. I know I'm just dreaming here so don't get yourself all overwrought. I'm not really going to to do it, BUT ya gotta admit, the idea is pure genius!

Back to earth. Back to laundry day.

Now let's talk towels. Do you use a clean towel everyday or do you use one multiple days before washing?
And, the most important question of all ... who does the laundry in your house?

Inquiring minds want to know.

5 comments:

  1. We each do our own laundry. So we reuse our towels and our night clothes. :-) Thanks for the peek inside your home!

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  2. Just the 2 of us, married for 27.5 years, & we still haven't worked this out.
    At least now we can laugh about it.

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  3. Alrighty...not in order...

    #1. Sleeping without clothes means less clothes to wash-just sayin. This works well, unless you are camping, in a tent, with window screen thingys. But that's a story for another time.

    #2. Laundry rooms in kitchens aren't too bad (I have one here at the office) but also here at the office/other house there are two sinks in the Master Bedroom, like the bathroom is sort of in the bedroom. (Need to photo.)

    #3. Towels-About 4 days, but we rotate through about 4 towels, so they get hung to dry and you grab a "drier" one and use it. Until they are all sort of damp-then they must be washed. But I have a dbf who likes to get up in the middle of the night and lay in the shower-so we go through a lot of towels.

    #4. Hamper/Basket-we do each have one, in the closet, luckily it's a big closet.

    #5. You'd rather have a dream closet/laundry area than a craft room??? Hmmm.

    #6. Today I'm washing over here at the "other house" aka the office, while working, on Saturday. Doing laundry at the office means writing off the power and water. But it also means hauling all the clothes back and forth to another house. Today's loads include the "red" load, the lightish load, and the filthy load...

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  4. Oh PS, one of my vacation requirements is clean towels every single day! I love clean towels, I'm just not washing a load of towels everyday!

    By the way how often do you wash the sheets? That's always up for discussion here.

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  5. guess i'm late in seeing this... glad to know you started your kids early on washing their own clothes too... my dream laundry room was in the BR house - it was in the bedroom wing - the ideal place since that's where most of clean laundry needs to go... the biggest laundry room i ever had was in the first texas house where i had part of the garage enclosed for an inside laundry room with a large counter for sewing[back when i used to sew] and folding clothes with lots of cabinets... sigh... the michigan house had a laundry chute that was neat and the kids enjoyed.... sleep clothes are reworn until i'm moved to wash them - and which varies w/ the weather, as if i have sweated during the night they get washed early... towels have to pass the 'smell test'... personally i like your idea of the bedroom conversion.. i love the way you digress- so funny.... maybe some ADHD going on there?

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