Color code your laundry baskets

Buy two baskets—a white one for whites and a colored one for colors. Eliminate the sorting step by keeping your whites and colors separate from the start! If you’ve got kids, get them involved. Think of it as a way to help teach your toddler about colors, help teach older kids to take responsibility for their belongings and help you at the same time!

Splurge on two more

Two extra color-coded baskets means when the full basket is on its way to the washing machine or full of folded, clean clothes ready to be put away, dirty clothes won’t pile up on the floor.

Create a central repository

If you’ve got a laundry basket in every bedroom, the dirty clothes can really pile up on you. Choose a central area for all dirty clothes. As soon as one of your two color-coded baskets is full, do a load. Remember, a load a day keeps the mountains of laundry at bay!

Sock it away

Select an area near your washer/dryer for stray socks. That way, when the match shows up (days or even weeks later), you won’t have to go looking for the stray.

Find a Stain Spot

If a garment is stained, don’t even think about throwing it in the hamper. Why not? Chances are, it will get treated like all the rest of the clothes in the pile, washed with regular detergent and (gasp!) dried. Nothing sets a stain like a dry cycle. Put seriously soiled items in a designated stain spot so they don’t get mixed up with other gently worn dirty clothes. Try adding Tide Stain Release to your wash with your regular detergent. It’s the in-wash booster that helps remove tough stains THE 1ST TIME. It even works on dried stains. Get a coupon today.

Got a laundry tip?

We’d love to hear from you. Share your laundry ideas online. Who knows—your suggestions could be featured in a future installment of this article.

Articles

2010 Laundry Room Makeover

Register

^*Required Field

^*First Name:

^*Date of birth: (mm/dd/yyyy)

^*State: Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Conneticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

^*Email Address: