How Does Our Extra-Large Family Keep Up With Laundry?

Someone asked recently for laundry management ideas in another large-family group I'm part of, and I thought it would be helpful to share our current system here as well. We have tried a variety of different approaches to keeping clothes clean throughout the years, and as our family has grown, we've had to make some adjustments, but this is working well for us at this point and allows us to keep up pretty comfortable with a LOT of clothes to wash every day.

Our laundry room: thankfully, we do have a dedicated laundry room but it's not very big and quite a bit of space is taken up by food storage shelves on one side. We have a stack of empty laundry baskets for clean clothes to go in and a couple plastic totes stacked (with another basket on top!) for mending, clothes that don't currently fit anyone and need put away properly in the storage totes in the garage, etc. I've posted instructions on the wall of the laundry room for exactly how to run the machines for each type of laundry, as well as daily and weekly cleaning tasks to keep the room itself in order.

To keep a large family running as smoothly and sanely as possible, it's essential to empower people to be able to do as much as they can for themselves and figure out how things work without having to ask me about everything! This also gives them amazing skills that will serve them throughout their adult lives.

We only have 1 washer and dryer (many large families have 2 of each), but they are as high-capacity as we can find. I will tell you that as much laundry as we do, and with "built in obsolescence" being a very real thing, we have to replace one or the other of these roughly every year at this point. We have found that we do NOT like front-load washers (there often end up being problems with the door over time, and they clothes are always trying to fall out while you load and unload), though they are easier for kids to reach into and help with. We have found the best washer style for us does NOT have a center agitator (takes up space that could be filled in by clothes), and we look for either the washer or dryer or both to have a sanitize setting for things like towels, cloth diapers or training pants if we're currently using them, bedding that needs some extra help, or anything that's been exposed to the dreaded tummy bugs that tend to strike once or twice a year.

We have cheap flexible laundry baskets (I get them at Walmart for about $5) that each fit 1 load of laundry, 1 basket for every 2-3 kids, divided so the sizes in the load aren’t close together. So, for example 12-y-o boy, 5-y-o boy, and 2-y-o boy use 1 basket; 10-y-o boy and 3-y-o boy have another basket. Their names are written on them to keep things organized. This makes it easy to sort the clothes back into the right kid's clothes storage areas when they come out of the dryer.  For that, we use the large fabric storage cubes in a 4-square by 4-square storage unit (like Kallax from Ikea). Each kid has different colors of cubes, generally 3-4 boxes each (older kids have more because their clothes are bigger!). Their non-hanging clothes go in these, and then there is also some hanging-clothes space in each room.

We don’t have a precise schedule for when each individual load gets washed, but every morning we see what needs done that day: any baskets of regular clothes that are full, white/light towels, dark towels, diapers/training pants, bedding, whatever. We line those baskets up in the laundry room and work through them through the day--whoever is old enough to know how to run the machines and is available for a minute can move the loads along. We do roughly 4 loads a day but it varies! 

When a load goes in the wash, the dirty clothes basket goes back to their room (so any new dirty clothes SHOULD stay off the floor!), and clean clothes go in one of the "clean" laundry baskets that are stacked in the laundry room waiting their turn. If we start running short on clean laundry baskets, I know someone, somewhere has clothes to put away!! Kids are supposed to put away their wn clothes and help their little buddy put theirs away the same day they get through the wash, and when we have new babies still sleeping in our room, their clothes get washed along with mine and my husband's. Then the empty laundry baskets go back to the stack in the laundry room to wait for the next day's loads.

Towels, bedding, etc, get folded and put away the day they get washed and the basket gets put back too. My husband often helps with folding towels, along with whoever else has time, and this often gets done in the living room while people are sitting around chatting or with a good movie or educational video on. Each bedroom has a storage area (either a drawer or fabric storage box or plastic tote) for extra bedding, and towels are stored in cabinets or drawers in each bathroom. Dishtowels (we use flour-sack towels--super cheap, large, and easy to get really clean!) and dishcloths go back to their drawers in the kitchen.

We also use cloth napkins which we made very simply by cutting flour-sack towels into fourths and running them through the serger to create a narrow rolled edge to prevent unravelling. These are kept in a basket in a cabinet near our dining room tables (we use 3!) and part of post-meal clean up is for a little helper to get about 8 clean napkins from the basket to refill each of the 3 napkin holders (one for each table).

When older kids who have moved out come home to visit (usually at least once a week since most of them live close), they add their laundry to the line-up too. 

Sometimes, of course, someone will have something that especially needs prioritized for whatever reason (for example, work clothes or uniforms for one of the young adults), so that basket just gets moved to the front of the line if the washer isn't already open to just put it straight in.

It’s a big job but manageable this way, with a system and everyone helping!