Our laundry system is was very unorthodox to say the least. I hesitate to share the method we were using, but in the spirit of keeping it real, I will swallow my pride a bit and share my dirty little laundry secret. Our hallway was the dumping ground for dirty clothes. Yes, a pile of clothes in our upstairs hall. GASP. I’ll spare you the actual visual of the dirty clothes pile to save my pride a little bit, but this was the spot, right there. I don’t even know how this ended up happening.
I did actually buy each child their own color coded basket for their closets, but for some reason, that never stuck. Then, last week, I decided I would put hooks on the inside of their closet doors with mesh bags and for Erin a pretty bag I grabbed at Home Goods for 99 cents. Got them up and everything.
Then I realized, why am I fighting the system? Cause guess what, there’s a laundry chute in the very spot they’ve been throwing their clothes on the floor anyway.
They love dumping stuff (toys, slippers) down there, so why not make it the laundry? Imagine that, putting laundry in the laundry chute. The solution was there the whole time and it will save me the step of collecting 3 separate bags. Instead, the laundry will be delivered right down to the main level.
So why weren’t we doing that in the first place, you ask? Well, while it’s fantastic that we have a laundry chute, it’s location is not ideal. It is in the closet down the hall from the laundry room. We actually tried it before. The problem was clothes would land in different spots, get stuck on the shelf, get lost in the closet, etc. Finally, I came up with a simple solution.
Sometimes these are the projects that make me happiest. Purely functional, definitely not pretty. Even a little reminiscent of college days – there’s duct tape involved
Grabbed some 3M hooks from my collection of 3M hooks. I seem to be a hoarder of them.
Then, I attached them to the ceiling surrounding the chute and hung a mesh laundry bag around the chute to help guide the clothes to the laundry basket.
I did a test run and clothes still landed half in and half out, so I added another mesh laundry bag. Like I said, not pretty. I used what I had already on hand. When I get my groove on, I need to make things happen. Can’t stop to run to the store to grab something pretty. This is behind closed doors, so it doesn’t matter what it looks like.
Here’s where my favorite tool from college comes in. I cut the seam of the bottom of both bags and attached them together with duct tape. You know I don’t sew, so this was my makeshift solution. I may not be the DIY Queen, but I am resourceful!
I tied the drawstring and loop hook to the hanging bar to help guide the clothes a bit more.
And BOOM HEY, functional happiness!
It ain’t pretty, but it’s pretty awesome!
And my kids did a happy dance when they saw it. Seriously, my daughter showered me with hugs and high fives. I guess they like this new system. That’s half the battle to making it work.
So I did a happy dance too.
(Now to tackle the rest of this closet. Ugh.)
We too have a pile of clothes in the house. I'm not proud of it. I'm glad to know there is hope for us!
ReplyDeleteThat is too funny.. and really smart.
ReplyDeleteGrowing up we had a laundry chute that landed in the basement, you could walk down the basement stairs and it would look like a clothing store exploded. Clothes everywhere, since they would fly out of a hole a ceiling and didn't have any direction. My mom needed your solution.
Our laundry is on the 2nd floor and I actually have my kids throw dirty clothes in baskets inside an unused hall bathtub.. easy for them to hit and I can pull the shower curtain and nobody would ever know. You do what you gotta do!
I love your laundry chute. My sister has one and has the same problems with hers. I will have to let her know your solution. I would love one in my house. Would save a lot of time running up and down the stairs.
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