6 tips to make doing laundry easier

Doing laundry is dull, it's also unavoidable. These tips will help reduce the hassle when it comes to laundry day and less hassle means less stress - winning!

Pre sort your laundry.

Save yourself the hassle of working out whether you have enough items for a white wash, or doing a load that will go in the tumble dryer, only to find you’ve left 3 socks hidden at the bottom of the basket by pre sorting your laundry.

I sort mine simply into items the can go in the tumble dryer such as socks, underwear and towels and ‘everything else’ using these Brabantia laundry baskets. They’re really handy as I can stack them and use the drop down door at the front to post items in the basket. They’re 35 litres so about the right size for a load and a half of laundry (dependant on the size of your machine) which helps to encourage you to keep on top of your washing; plus they have handles on the side to make it easy to carry them to the washing machine if you keep them elsewhere in your home (I keep ours in the bedroom). If I had the space I would get another and have tumble dryer / whites / everything else but this method has worked really well for the last 3 years.

Unroll your socks

This is an extra step that goes with the pre sorting - when you take off your clothes, untangle them before you dump them in the laundry basket. This might seem like a bit of a hassle but those balled up socks will have to be de-balled to wash and dry properly so you might as well spend a second doing it as soon as you have removed them from your feet rather than spend 5 minutes de-balling a whole bunch of stinky socks that have been sat festering in the laundry basket for a week before you can throw them into the machine. I’m lucky enough that having mentioned this idea to my Mr not long after he moved in, I have yet to find a balled up sock!

Flip and Fold clothes folders

Ever seen a stack of t-shirts in a shop and wondered how everything is so neatly folded in such a uniform fashion? The secret is a flip and fold. If you’ve ever worked in retail you might have used them, I think I spotted these on The Big Bang Theory and honestly I love them a little bit more than I should.

If you’re reading this and thinking really? Have we really reached this level of geekiness? Then yes, yes we have but don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. They are so quick to use and mean that everything is the same size when folded which makes them easier to fit into your drawers. These also can be useful if you follow the KonMari method of storing your clothes and stand items on their end in your drawers (which I do).

All white linen

Having white towels, sheets and bed linen is so much easier to keep clean. This might seem like a mad idea, but just stick with me for a minute because I thought the same thing but now I’m a convert!

I’ve been dying my hair red for a number of years and as a result have always stuck to having grey of black bedding and towels as I thought this would be easier to keep looking nice and wouldn’t show up any dye transference. This sort of worked however after buying some very nice (expensive!) grey bedding I noticed after a while that not only could you see a pink hue on the pillow case, plus the whole set was fading at different rates so every piece was a different shade of grey. It’s a lot harder (read impossible) to keep a coloured set of linens all looking good over time as it’s natural for the dyes in them to fade at different rates, much easier to bring whites back to white as it’s basically an absence of colour.

And if you’re wondering how you can keep white linen looking fresh, don’t reach for the bleach - it can react with the oils left from your skin on bedding and make it yellow (yuck!). Instead, in addition to your normal detergent, add a cup of bicarbonate of soda to the washing machine drum, then a cup of white vinegar and 1/4 cup of lemon juice to the bit in the drawer you’d put softener in then wash as normal, no need for high temperatures either - I promise this works!

If you have whites that are looking really tired and in need of refreshing the same bicarb/vinegar/lemon juice miracle combo works. Just add them with some warm water to a bucket and soak your item overnight, then wash as normal. You can get all these items in bulk from Amazon which saves you a ton of money, plus it’s better for the environment as it’s less packaging than buying in smaller supermarket packs, plus you can use them for a bunch of other household cleaning. It’s a no brainer.

Check the care label

Seen a gorgeous jumper that you simply have to have? Before you dash to the checkout take a look at the washing instructions to see what you’re signing up for. Be honest, are you going to make time to hand wash it? Can you afford the dry cleaning bills if it’s something you’re planning on living in? Hell, are you ever going to wave an iron near it? (In my case, probs not). There’s no point buying something if it’s only going to be worn a couple of times before it’s relegated to the bottom of the laundry basket with the other hand wash only items. This also helps you keep on top of your laundry if most of your clothes can be dealt with in the same way.

Let it all hang out

Living in a flat in London I don’t have access to outside space, nor do I have a tumble dryer. I used to have a traditional airer which would take up loads of space in the living room and would have to be awkwardly shuffled out of sight when unexpected guests came round when my washing wasn’t yet dry. Last year we got our first puppy (more about him here) - which prompted me to look for solutions to help reduce the amount of trouble he could get into. It’s not fair to punish a puppy for chewing shoes if you’ve left them lying around, equally an airer full of clean clothes probably would have been too great a temptation for him. The solution I found was genius - over door folding airers. There weren’t many options but these were the best I could find, not only did it keep everything out of reach of our cheeky little pup, they hold a surprising amount of stuff and because they hang from our wardrobe doors when I’m not using them I simply fold them flat, instantly self storing! The Mr and I tag team it, with him hanging stuff on the top rack while I put clothes on the lower one. And added bonus is that due to them being higher up it takes advantage of heat rising.