A laundry system a 9-year-old can handle, and time-tested laundry products.

All the laundry comments remind me that there are different situations out there. I'm conscious of the difficulty of handing out advice. But if I think you and me sitting at my kitchen table with a cup of tea, talking about what highly intelligent folks talk about -- ("The problem with you women is that you just want to talk about the price of potatoes!" a guy friend once scolded. Hey, I can talk about the stimulus package or the One and the Many if you want to, but I am interested in the price of potatoes :) -- I know that if I tell you how I do it, you will say to yourself, "I can do that, and I can do better than that." Yes, it's as I've been telling you -- If I can do it, so can you!

So here are some notes on simplifying the laundry. This post is blah-blah-blah-blah...it just goes on and on. Oh my goodness. I'm so sorry.

Those of you with high-tech nuclear-powered washing machines and dryers are on your own. Read your manual and figure it out. Actually, everyone should read the instructions that come with household appliances. These machines are expensive to replace, and they are not magic!

It's easier to explain to a child how to use an appliance if we really understand it ourselves. Have you completely internalized the fact that if you consistently overload your washer it will fail you long before its time? This knowledge will help you explain to your minions how to choose a water level.

Much more on all that and exactly how to get a kid to do laundry in Worksheet III in the sidebar.

As to products, I am not going to be seduced by most of those things out there. If you can show me it really works better than what I've got, okay...so far this is what I always have on hand.Laundry detergent.

I'm going to challenge you to choose a detergent that doesn't have a scent. Personally, the smell of regular Tide makes me feel sick. It took me a long time to like real honest to goodness lavender because of this overused product. I buy Mountain Fresh or whatever it's called Tide (see the little green corner up there that I practically cut off?) because it's got little scent of its own (sometimes I can find unscented, but not always). I haven't found generic kinds that aren't practically chemical weapons on the nose.

I want to point out to you that really clean laundry has a clean smell of its own. Lately I've been noticing that some people's laundry smells clean from far away, but if you get into it and really smell it, it's not clean deep down. So your scented detergent might be masking this sad truth from you.
To provide deep-down cleanliness, you need a couple of other products and the occasional run through with warm or hot water (outdoor line-drying in the sun is a distant memory at this point for those of us who are hibernating). I realize that we are all trying to be frugal and washing in cold water, but permit me to say that refraining from warm or hot water when you need it is causing you to wash certain things more often than they need to be washed, which is costing you in electricity, water, and wear-and-tear on your machines.What makes things smell, for the most part, is molds. Towels need bleach and at least warm water. In the summer they need hot water or line drying. Last summer we stayed at a beach house that supplied towels and sheets.
I ended up washing all the "clean" linens before we could use them... I had to go buy bleach and proper detergent to do it. They were so musty I couldn't bear to even be in the house with them.

Mustiness is that "whiff" of something that's not dirt that you get from damp towels, sponges, washcloths, rain gear, old shoes, or anything that has been sitting around in moisture. That "whiff" makes me crazy! The only cure is bleach or a good airing in the direct sun. Please don't send me comments about your baking soda. You must not live in a damp place like I do.

If you find that laundry in drawers after a few days no longer seems clean, try doing your wash in warm water for a while.

Here is a real secret (really, no one else will tell you about this! I learned it from my BFF Sue):
Lestoil will remove those grease spots on knits and chino pants. You know how you always seem to get salad on your favorite polo shirt? Or how your husband seems to drop pizza on his new khakis? How about that ring around the collar of winter jackets? Rub Lestoil into the grease spot, let it sit for a few minutes, and launder in warm water. I've never used a more effective grease spot remover, so I don't buy the others any more. You can see that I got one of those ketchup bottles for it, because it's hard to be accurate with the big bottle! I cleaned it off just for you!

For articles that seem yellowed and for sheets and other vaguely greasy objects, try ammonia according to the directions. Your pillowcases won't get really clean with bleach. You need ammonia! (And remember, never mix the two. A toxic gas will result.)I do like oxygen-type bleaches for some things. I don't have a picture here, but that Carbona stain devils is oxygen-based. I don't know what that Grandma's stuff is. For that matter, you could use straight hydrogen peroxide.

For whites that have yellowed, try Mrs. Stewart's. It works! You can tell that all you have to do around here is put a picture of an old lady on a product and we will buy it! (By the way, I get nothing for telling you any of this.)

I used that Clorox II on my sofa cushion covers (gasp! I was very brave indeed -- I waited for a hot dry July spell and just about got an ulcer doing it) and it worked very well.

As to the dryer, I use one quarter to one third of a dryer sheet in my regular loads to prevent static (not with the towels). The cheapest, most generic dryer sheets are just fine.

A few years ago the Chief made me this drying rack. I (or whoever is doing the laundry) put lingerie and whatever else really shouldn't go in the dryer on it, and very handy it is.It deploys right there in the mudroom.
And, ta-da! My old dryer was so pitifully scratched and rusty, because people will put things on there. When I got my new one (don't scorn it just because it doesn't look like it's from outer space, it works great), I put this rubber matting on it to protect it. Every once in a while I rinse it off, let it dry, and put it on again. I cut a new one just for you. No rusty scratches!

What do you think? Should we change the header?

I can't even remember where we got those little Indian chicken ornaments. I do remember that I used to hang them up, until Bridget (she was much younger then) helpfully cut the "tags" off of two of them. So now they go on the window frame.
They are not easy to photograph...
...but they are really cute.
To me, right now, they don't really seem all that Christmas-y. But maybe that isn't the case. I kind of don't want to change the header...but maybe I'm delusional, like that lady on What Not to Wear who wore a raccoon tail on her pants all the time -- remember that episode?What do you think?

VI. "Bland Diet"

{I first published this as a Google document, mainly because I wasn't going to have any pictures to go with it, and you know I like posts to have pictures. My thought was that this should be something easy for you to print out and put in your menu binder. But now Google has messed with things, so I'm just posting it.}

Go here for Worksheet I.
Go here for Worksheet II.
Go here for Worksheet III.
Go here for Worksheet IV.
Go here for Worksheet V.

Worksheet VI: Bland Diet

What to eat when you (or someone you love) have an upset stomach, vomiting, diarrhea, the flu,

or the doctor says "bland diet":

During:

Give liquids by the spoonful:

Tea with sugar and no milk

Peppermint tea

Ginger ale (be aware that big-name brands don't actually have ginger in them, but do have High-Fructose Corn Syrup. Maybe stock up on real cane sugar soda with real ginger (I get mine at Whole Foods, not a store I usually shop at)

Diluted juice

Popsicles

{don't give plain water}

Recovery:

No fats.

No dairy.

Soft-boiled egg

Poached egg

Very ripe banana

Applesauce

Toast – no butter; honey or jelly are okay

Saltines, not Ritz (too oily)

Beef broth (be aware of the non-nutritional nature of canned beef broth, as well as the MSG, and maybe have some homemade stock in the freezer)

Plain chicken

Chicken noodle soup

Chicken rice soup (use white rice)

Rice (salt, and a tiny amount of butter can be tolerated after a bit)

Mashed potatoes (without milk – mash with potato water and salt)

Popsicles

Apple juice mixed with water

Black "real" Tea – sugar, no milk

Peppermint tea

Ginger ale

Tonic (not for pregnant ladies as contains quinine – but good for malaria ;)

Introduce dairy in the form of plain yogurt sweetened with a little jam or honey. (Ice cream is usually well tolerated, at least by our family. ☺)

V: Save a Step!

{I first published this as a Google document, mainly because I wasn't going to have any pictures to go with it, and you know I like posts to have pictures. My thought was that this should be something easy for you to print out and put in your menu binder. But now Google has messed with things, so I'm just posting it.}

Go here for Worksheet I.
Go here for Worksheet II.
Go here for Worksheet III.
Go here for Worksheet IV.


Worksheet V. ~ Save-a-Step Cooking

Buy low, sell high.

Did you notice in Worksheet III how few dishes I cook from scratch on a given day, although all my cooking is "scratch"? This is Save-A-Step cooking!

Menu-making with an eye to the marginal benefits of any particular dish or process will streamline your dinner preparations and make cooking an enjoyable part of your days rather than a huge chore. I touched on this in Worksheet III and elsewhere, and I’d like to really delve into it here.

If you are clever, you can schedule your week so that only on one or two days do you put in a big cooking effort – at the most – and usually you will take advantage of some time-saving steps you've done when it’s convenient and efficient. You still make everything you want from scratch, but efficiently!

I think of this as “buy low, sell high” as applied to the precious commodity of time. Use your time when it’s plentiful – say, on a day when you are home for at least a morning, rather than doing errands all day, to build up a food stash for a day when you have little time (when time is “expensive” for you). Use the hour that you are already making a roast chicken to roast two chickens (or three!). This costs you no more in time for the actual roasting, and only a little more for cutting the extra cooked chicken up and adding the bones to the stock pot. Later, when you need cooked chicken or chicken stock for a recipe, it’s already there for you.

In another economics image, you are applying efficiencies of scale by using your means of production to increase output. So, for instance, if you are already making bread, you increase the dough and make a couple of loaves to freeze. Even an extra pan of rolls in the freezer takes the edge off the work of a future meal.

In contrast, the idea of bulk cooking has you taking many steps all at once – shopping for many meals, cooking many different kinds of foods – for later. Realities of life in a large busy family don’t get factored in – nursing a baby, illness, extra guests… I would call that “buy high, sell high” – not sound advice!

In Save a Step Cooking you do whatever you are doing now, only you see how you can use the existing set-up to give yourself a little edge later. In just a couple of short weeks, this system will pay off, and you will have even more free time to create efficiencies in even more areas as they occur to you.

Use your menu planning.
Now, concretely, the menu planning stage is the place to do most of this thinking. I find it interesting that mothers of the past did what I’m suggesting as a matter of course, because they were very busy with many activities, many children, and few resources. Ladies like “Ma” of Little House books would make their roast (if they had one) on Sunday, and then use the bounty in the coming week. Even without freezers they had a stash of stale bread that awaited clever use in many dishes. They used up the less stable items first, and then moved on to those that kept. They had common sense!

Here are some ways to get started on this today. You will think of lots of others. My point is – don’t do it all at once. Do it as you go, saving your steps along the way.


1. Plan for roasts on Sundays at least two Sundays a month.

It’s fairly easy to do, and everyone loves a roast with gravy. The frugal way to do this is to make whatever roast or large piece of meat is on sale. Try to get a roast that is at least a bit larger than what you would normally buy, or two chickens if you usually roast one, three if you usually roast two. It will repay you many times in the coming days! You can prevent people from eating too much meat by serving enough side dishes, along with hearty rolls. Make them take those first!

You don’t have to take care of the leftovers right away. You can cover the pan with foil and put the whole thing in the fridge (if you have enough room!) and deal with it the next day – often it’s easier to cut up meat when it’s cold. However, once you get used to cooking this way, you will find it doesn’t take that long to divide leftover meat into slices, chunks, and bones.

Wrap the meat up separately, labeling clearly. Either wrap the bone up for freezing, or go ahead and start a stock pot as your family helps you clear up after dinner. Just throw the bones and any handy onion, carrot, and celery in and set to a boil. If you want, you can just do the bones and add vegetables at another stage. There is not really any precision to this! Do set the timer for two hours – many is the time I’ve boiled down a pot of broth after leaving the kitchen! That’s not thrifty!). Adding a couple of tablespoons of vinegar helps dissolve the excellent nutrients in the bones and connective tissues.

This broth will be the lynchpin of your food stash, saving you not just one, but many, steps in the coming weeks. You can add leftover gravy if you won’t be using it in the next two days. It will enrich the broth nicely.

Once the broth has cooked (the bones will be soft or, in the case of big meat bones, all the connective tissue will have boiled into the liquid, and any meat in there will be bland to the taste), pour it through a colander into a bowl large enough to allow quick cooling. Put it into the refrigerator until the next day. If you have ever tried vainly to get the fat off stock in a rush, you will thank yourself many times over for doing it this way.

The next day (or the next, no rush), scrape off the fat (or lift it off in one piece, depending on the type of broth) and throw it away. Spoon the congealed broth into containers, leaving head room, and label clearly. I just write with a Sharpie right on my plastic containers. New writing goes right over old, no problem.

Now, any recipes on your handy Master Menu List that call for already cooked meat are a breeze for you. Barbeque pork sandwiches? Check. Chicken enchiladas? No problem. Ham and bean soup? Yup. Turkey pot pie? Got it. You haven’t got the whole thing, of course, but you are well on your way, without having knocked yourself out on an all-day cooking spree.

2. Make more of whatever you are making.

Let’s say that you have scheduled roast sweet potatoes in their jackets for a side this week. (Sweet potatoes are my favorite food. I love them so! Nothing could be easier, either. Just choose a bunch in a uniform size, put them on a sheet of tinfoil on a baking tray, and roast them at a high heat – at least 425*. They make an awful mess as they ooze their sugars, so do use the foil. Then serve, split open, with a little butter and salt. Heaven!) Just put in twice as many and let the extras cool completely. Cut them out of their skins, slice them into a container, and freeze. Another day you can have sweet potatoes as a side dish, premixed with butter and salt, without the hot oven or messy tin foil.

Making a pot pie? Can you make another one, even if it’s smaller? I could never face making pot pies on a day I was also making every other meal for the month, but if I’m already making one, it’s not that hard to make another. It will come in handy on a day when Dad has taken the boys somewhere and there are not as many people around for supper.

Making more is particularly important with baking. Making a pie? Make an extra crust or two – it will freeze perfectly if wrapped well, and then your pot pie is that closer to realization.

Homemade bread freezes beautifully. When it’s defrosted it tastes just like you baked it that day. You can wrap it in paper towel and microwave it in a pinch, and it’s just fine. It’s always worth it to freeze at least a loaf or enough rolls for a meal.

If you are making cookies, scrutinize the recipe. It’s almost not worth doing if you are not going to make extra. It takes so much time to get the ingredients out and mix them. Go ahead and make a quadruple batch! You can freeze the dough if you can’t get to making them all now.

A lot of things can be frozen that you wouldn’t expect. So go ahead and make more!


3. Save a Step on basic recipe building blocks.

Don’t get caught out without bread crumbs. Any lame dish is made so much better with a topping of bread crumbs, let alone how much you use them in recipes.

Save all the bread ends and bits lying around and put them in the food processor. I used to balk at doing this because I didn’t want to have to wash it out after such an insignificant use. Then I realized that either the crumbs are so dry and inert in terms of anything else I would put in the processor that a simple wipe would do, or I was going to use the processor soon after for something that would not be affected by my having made crumbs, and then wash it.

Put the crumbs in a zip bag, press out the air, and keep in the freezer.

Almost every conceivable savory dish calls for chopped onion, chopped garlic, and perhaps chopped peppers. Go ahead and sauté up double, triple, or more, freezing the extra for next time. Go another step: if the recipe calls for doing all this with ground beef, do a large amount and freeze the extra! I can’t count how many times my skin was saved, dinner-wise, by having this mixture in the freezer ready to go. You can make spaghetti with meat sauce, chili, sloppy joes, meat enchiladas, burritos – all without firing up the skillet.

Most recipes using boneless chicken breasts are enhanced by pounding the breasts first. If I’m making boneless chicken breasts, it’s almost by definition that I’m in a rush! So when I buy them, I take them out of the package, pound them all, and repackage them in sets of 3 with a layer of plastic wrap in between the sets. They store all flat in a zip bag and are ready to go out of the freezer – much better than trying to handle them half frozen and all sort of bunched up.

Chopping nuts for a recipe? Why chop up ½ cup? Go ahead and chop up the whole package, and then store the rest in the freezer.

Even cutting up carrots and celery can get you a step ahead when you make your broth. If you have the little odds and ends in a zip bag in the freezer, you are all ready to go on Sunday evening when you get out that stock pot. By the way, mushroom stems, parsley stems, and parmesan cheese rinds are great additions to the stock pot. Just pop them in that handy bag as you acquire them.

Making mashed potatoes? Drain the cooking water into a bowl, and then transfer into a clean jar. Any bread recipe is enhanced by substituting potato water for some of the liquid. It keeps a week or so in the fridge.

Cooking bacon? We have bacon at least once a week. That’s a lot of bacon fat to throw away! Drain the fat into a clean jar and keep, covered, in the fridge. Use it to make your pancakes and as the shortening in savory pie crusts. If you decide one day to do a deep fry, use the bacon grease! It’s so tasty.

4. Store things so they will help you later.

Did you make too much soup? Put it in a container and freeze it. 

Make it a priority to do the best you can with what you have. If you are making stock, then make it and store it properly. If you buy a lot of broccoli, cook it all right away – cooked vegetables save their freshness better than raw. You can use the leftovers in soups and casseroles, but a bunch of raw broccoli in the fridge loses its savor pretty quickly.

Put whole grains, nuts, and spices in the freezer. Left out, they go rancid and stale quickly.

Even if you are not inspired now, store the item in question for maximum freshness and decide later. You may come across just the right idea when you least expect it.

Do a little more when you can, not all at once.

Now you are getting the idea. If you are cooking something anyway, think ahead and cook some more of that particular thing. Choose your dishes to produce other dishes another day. Don’t be afraid of leftovers – leftovers are the goal here! Don’t be afraid to build your stash and Save a Step!

Washerwoman's paradise, with another secret.

I think that there are lots of ways to skin this cat. If you have a good system going for your laundry, then -- good for you! I affirm you! And a lot depends on whether you have a dedicated laundry room with plenty of... room, or whether you have to make-do in the basement or mudroom, like I do.

Also, there are just not many good pictures I can take of laundry, so bear with me, all you visual people!
I'm going to tell you about my way. This is a kid-tested, decades-honed, homeschool-proof, flexible system that does not take over your life.

Fair warning: it also does not produce a home free of laundry baskets in various stages of delivery. If you are looking for such a system -- one in which a basket of clothes is no where to be found -- I suggest you

1) hire a laundress
2) give up ever doing anything other than laundry
3) go naked
4) get rid of almost all of your children.

Otherwise, welcome to my world! Everything I tell you is based on a family of at least 6. If you have fewer, you may not need so many baskets, but this system is just fine.
Now, you will need to rid your laundry area of the piles of things you have in there. Most likely, you have a lot of stuff that you thought at the time, "That is an unusual load of things. I'll get to it soon." Like, maybe, a bedspread you're not sure your machine can handle? Some sweaters you think might shrink? Some very dirty towels?

Whatever it is, get to the bottom of it. Take the bedspread and a couple of others to the laundromat. Decide to do the sweaters on the "hand washable" cycle or get them to the dry cleaner. Start some loads of towels with hot water and bleach.
Take a day, pull everything to the middle of the room, and plow through all the piles until one way or another they are gone. Put all the clean stuff into a room to be sorted later.

Now, while you are at the laundromat, go over to the dollar store and get yourself four plastic hampers. This is what you need: one for lights, one for darks (these should not be super big), one for towels and sheets (this one can be large), and one for "special needs" loads (not large; I'll explain soon). If you have a couple of really cute wicker baskets you have been using, you can deploy them thus: one for the ironing (mine is not cute or wicker):and one for the kitchen, pantry, or mudroom for soiled items from those areas (this one is wicker, very cute; I looked literally for years to find one to fit this little space). Otherwise, get two more hampers at the dollar store.

If you don't have them, you need 4-6 ordinary plastic laundry baskets, preferably stackable.

Now, find a place not far from the bathroom or bedrooms for the 4 hampers. We keep ours in the upstairs hall. I can't even take a whole shot of mine because I've had them for so long; the covers are long gone and they are a little the worse for wear. They don't match. (Well, they match each other but not the others. You know?) They are actually kind of sad. But that's okay. I'm not you-know-who.
Here is where you have to convince yourself that your children can and will understand what they have to do. And they can! and they will! if you insist. They must, every night upon disrobing, place their dark clothing into one hamper and their light clothing into the other.

I am here to tell you that even a two-year old, if a girl, and definitely a three-year old, if other, can learn this. Usually they interpret it to mean that outer clothes go in the darks and underwear into the lights, and if you firmly explain that a light yellow t-shirt counts as light and black socks count as black, usually a five-year old can get it. Yes, you will have to adjust the occasionally mis-filed object.
Insist that they put TWO socks in. Spend a week making a point of directing them to put whatever socks they have randomly thrown about into an appropriate hamper. Mudroom hamper is fine. Just get it in there. I am death on taking socks off wherever one happens to be. Any perpetrator will be dragged from kingdom come to dispose of them properly. This is why most of my loads come out sock-even. When you (they) master this, train them to turn them right-side out first. Oh yeah, we're talking brutal efficiency.

Towels and bedding go in the larger hamper. Small children really don't have much to do with this, and I say more about it in Worksheet II. But older people can know what to do with a dirty towel.Any special clothing, such as sweaters, dress shirts, nice delicate cotton knits, dress pants, silk tops, and lingerie go in the "permanent press" hamper. I have always taken care of those things, since a mistake can spell disaster here, where the other categories are more forgiving. See, mine is very small, because hardly anyone is here any more.Think about it. If the laundry is pre-sorted, doesn't it make life easier? Do we really enjoy going through dirty laundry to get it in the right place? Is it necessary to add this dreaded step to a stupid, Sisyphean, thankless task? Yes, no, and no. And this is my secret. Pre-sorted dirty clothing. It's worth it. More in Worksheet II.

I don't decorate. I put my pretty things around, but I don't decorate.

I think it would be nice to have an amazing mudroom/laundry room designed by Martha Stewart. Although she would probably not do a combo, since it doesn't really make sense. And then, I wonder, would everyone feel comfortable when they saw it? Or would they feel like they could never live up to me and my decorating? Good thing I am not put to the test :)
Sometimes do you feel that if you can't have something perfect, you can't have anything at all? For a long time I worked that way, assuming that if things couldn't be architect-designed, well, what was the use. I have very high standards!

I would tell myself that "someday" I would have everything "decorated", but "for now" I wouldn't bother, since I couldn't afford what I really wanted. Ah, that "someday"! What a wasting thought!I'm over that now. Now, I don't "decorate" -- although I might occasionally use that word. I just try to make things like they are, only cleaner, prettier, and happier. I'm reconciled to a certain lack of stick-to-it-ive-ness on my part in the area of painting and rehabbing. And, let's face it, cleaning. It's all a work in progress...

I thought, since we are on the topic of laundry, that I would tell you about some of the things I have going on in my entry area and "laundry room", and some fun "make-do" stuff I've done. You might like it. It might help you realize that if I can do it, so can you, and far better! Whereas, with a decorating magazine, I'm afraid we will never measure up...
I found this washboard in my neighbor's trash, back where we used to live (here, you can't really see your neighbor's trash; too bad!), along with a bed that I'll show you sometime. I have seen these washboards at antique shops for $25, so I was pretty happy about that. This corner is the outside of a bathroom, just for your information.

The shelf and peg board were made for me by the Chief. The pegs at the end keep falling out, not to cast any aspersions at this point, so I just leave them off. There are plenty of other ones. You can see that we haven't gotten around to painting these things...I found everything on the shelves at yard sales. I think that tray adds a bit of drama as you come in, don't you? I tried to find a place for it in the kitchen, to no avail.

I used to keep birdseed in that wicker bag (in a plastic bag), but then I realized that it easily breeds moths. Not a good idea. On the other end of the shelf are some working flashlights. We learned our lesson after that ice storm, let me tell you!The baskets are handy for storing things, and even if a handle is broken, you can just turn that side to the wall.
This is the other side of the mudroom/laundry area. I put clothespins, jacket hoods, and unused shin guards up there. The Chief made me this shelf with brackets we just found in the garage, I think, when we moved here.
I don't know if you remember this picture:When you come in, your mail can be found here. If you live here, that is. Well, even if you don't!These cabinets were in the pantry, very inconveniently. So when we pulled everything out of there, I slapped any old paint on them and put them in here. I just got that amazingly beautiful flowerpot at a thrift store for a couple of dollars. Also, note the candle. Handy in a power failure... As you know, I love enamelware of any kind. This old refrigerator bin makes a good basin for soaking things. It's above this: Which is a heavy-duty potteryworks utility sink that the amazing Brian stripped of old paint and made a base for. Someone should clean under there. And take a sharper picture.

There, now you can feel pretty good about what you've got, right? I'm happy with what I've got. It could use some sprucing up, but it works for me.

Tomorrow, let's get that laundry room working for you!

Laundry problems start with clothes.

So, hopefully dinner and food shopping are going better. We'll talk about it some more. Seems like the kind of thing we can talk about every day, huh? Don't get impatient with yourself...stick with me and we'll take it one step at a time.

Don't forget to check out the postings on the sidebar, including some worksheets you can print out and put in your housekeeping binder. Housekeeping binder... a subject for another post...
But in the meantime, it's good to think a bit about the laundry. Remember how important it is to be sure to at least do the minimum? Namely, three pain-free meals a day and clean underwear...
And just so you don't think that I'm doing my laundry in a sort of washerwoman's paradise, I will show you this:
Which is actually in my back (that is to say, most used) entry way, so it has to look pretty much like this all the time. (At some point I had a vague idea to hang a curtain there, but that never materialized. Get it? Materialized? I slay myself with my wit...)
I mean, it should look better than that, but it's what I've got.
So I'm not Martha-ing you here. I'm just like you, only less sophisticated.

Okay. Here it is. The one thing you just have to grapple with to be able to emerge from the mountain of dirty clothes and the ocean of clean clothes at last. It's not all you have to do, but it's the indispensable first step.

Have fewer clothes.
Seriously.

(Whose room is that??)

And I don't just mean this for the shopaholics among us. I'm not just talking about the victims of the overgenerous grandmas and aunties. I mean it for the frugal, thrifty, "simple living" ones -- all you out there with a lot of kids and not much cash.

In some ways, we have it worse, because we're afraid of letting go of something in case it could come in handy later on, and this is particularly hard when you know that the little sprouts are outgrowing their togs faster than you can find them at the thrift store.

Our family actually got by for several years when the kids were little purely on bags left on my porch by kind neighbors. Yet, this posed a problem. Anxious to keep anything with any possible use, I was actually making a lot of work for myself and preventing my children from helping me effectively.

The truth is, children will only end up wearing a few outfits on a daily basis. They don't like change; they like predictability. Not only is it no use fighting this trait, it's counterproductive. Their drawers and closets are so full of things they don't wear, they actually live out of their laundry baskets most of the time. They simply can't put things away.

In addition, they function within a paradox: they only want to wear a few things, but the knowledge they have many things gives them implicit permission to overuse the laundry system. Clothing doesn't fit in drawers, so it ends up on the floor, or if you are lucky, in a hamper. A garment on the floor is by definition dirty! So you are overwhelmed.

Here is what your pre-adolescent children need: a few, five at the most, bottoms (say, two pairs of jeans and two corduroys). A scant week's worth of tops. Two light sweaters. Possibly a vest. For boys, a good pair of pants for Sundays, and two good shirts. For girls, two nice dresses or two church-worthy skirts and two ditto blouses.
Much more than this, and you will find that it all sits in a drawer getting stuff heaped on it. If the child has six drawers and they don't close, you have an issue. (My older kids shared dressers, and basically had two drawers each. For all their clothes.)

Now, at the same time, each child also needs more underwear than you might think. First, socks.

Please, for the love of all that is good, try to buy socks in a minimum quantity of 6 to a pack. And buy two identical packs at a time.Why? Because, this way, if you lose a sock, and then you lose another sock, you still have a pair! But with the cute unique socks you are getting them now, lose one and you are out a pair of socks. I once met a poor lady who had an entire laundry basket full of single socks. There were so many different styles you couldn't even hope to find the missing one in that pile if it happened to be there.

Buy the kind they like, which these days is ankle socks (but not super low in the winter). Never buy tube socks. Don't skimp on quality. Get them at Marshall's. Get the good kind. Get good tights for the girls. And one pair of dress socks for the each boy. He won't wear them anyway. Try to have at least 8-10 underpants, and at least 6 undershirts. You will be doing a bit less laundry by the time I'm done with you, so they need to have enough underwear to survive the gap, including if for some reason you are sick and can't get it done, the power goes out, or some other disaster.
Just go ahead and go through those drawers. If something is out of season, take it out. Ask yourself if you have seen each item on a person in the past two weeks. If the answer is no, give it away or put it in a box to try on the next kid. Maybe it's too small, too big, or he just doesn't like it. It's hard to accept that last one, but there it is. Just get it out of your life, at least for now.

Fewer outer clothes, more under clothes. That's the beginning of the path of laundry wisdom, according to moi.

If you need a more in-depth discussion of this aspect of the laundry, without pictures, check out my Worksheet I, on the sidebar.