My laundry savior has been to start the boys doing their own loads. Each of us has a day of the week: monday - gareth, tuesday - owen, weds - reece, thurs - tennyson with the help of me or someone else that got in trouble for something and owes me some work, and then fri/the weekend i do my laundry with g. The kids keep all their clothes in their hamper in their room and then bring the full thing up to wash and put in the drier themselves. We also throw in whatever towels they've used or a few other random things to fill up a load. After school they fold and put away on their own. When I'm on the ball I like to fold my/g's clothes straight out of the drier - i'll have hangers in the laundry room and put most of our shirts directly on there.
One thing that is a MUST for this system is that I can not be anal about the way the boys do thier clothes, their folding is mediocre, organization is questionable, but i paired down their closets a LOT. Also, if they are sloppy and things are on the floor that are clean no one suffers for it but themselves because if i see clothes on the floor i throw them in their baskets and they are the ones that have to wash/fold themselves. SOMETIMES i will go through and organize their clothes again, but mostly only when i am checking to see what we need to purge/buy for them.
During the first week of the month, each of them adds their sheet to their dirty clothes and washes that too (I say sheet because they all refuse top sheets and I have given up the battle and only make them use a fitted one). When laundry is done that day the sheet goes back on the bed and they are good to go.
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