A Cure for Out-of-Sorts Laundry

Our five sons used to walk on or crawl through my piles of sorted dirty laundry constantly, mixing them up before I had enough for a full load of wash. I grew tired of separating the clothes again and again and again. Finally, I bought four tall, rectangular garbage containers, each large enough to hold a washerful of clothes. With a permanent marker, I wrote “Whites,” “Colors,” “Darks,” and “Hang-ups”—one label on the front of each container; on the back, I wrote washing instructions for each load. For example, on the back of the “Whites” container, I wrote “warm wash, cold rinse, fabric softener, powdered bleach, and detergent.”

I keep the containers next to our washer and dryer. Now the boys can easily sort their own laundry, and the sorted clothes are out of the way until we’re ready to wash them. The instructions help the older boys correctly handle a load of clothes without my help.—Luann Gray, Boise, Idaho

Illustrated by Scott Greer