Do you find wet towels thrown on your bathroom floor?
Shoved in your hampers making other clothes wet and mildewy?
Lying around your children's (or horror of horrors...your) bedroom?
When company comes are you searching in desperation to find one towel and washcloth
that are in good enough condition for them to use?
Do you ever step out of the shower, reach for your towel where you left it, and suddenly realize someone has used it to clean up the cat's water that spilled? (ok..maybe that one really has only happened to me!)
Have you ever dried your hands on a kitchen towel and then wondered why your hands don't smell
"oh so fresh!"?
If you answered yes to even a few of the above...then you too may have suffered from...
TOWEL TROUBLE!
Managing laundry in a large family was constantly a struggle for me.
Some time ago I posted our new laundry system and you can read about it
It has been by far my most commonly read blog post!
This technique has done wonders to help our laundry mess-I hope it may have helped some of you as well!
But...Ho Hum.....it wasn't complete. There were still two leftover laundry lapses in our plan!
Socks and towels. The sock situation will have to wait until another day but..
I am happy to share our success with solving our towel trouble!
Step 1: Search the mail each day and anxiously await the Kohl's flyer announcing one of their regular sales and scratch off included sticker for more discounts!!!
Step 2: Cut up, into rag size, every single old towel, stinky towel, stained towel in your home!!! (These will be used...don't worry). The only ones I did not cut were our pool towels
(which before this system were just mixed in with all the others anyway.)
Step 3: Go shopping and buy new towels!!! But don't just buy a pile of matching pretty ones! Here's the list:
1. Buy one towel, each a different color or pattern, for each person in your home.
2. Buy one matching washcloth for each of the above.
3. Buy two completely separate (and I chose to buy a nicer quality) towels and matching washcloths
for company.
4. Buy a stack of new dish cloths.
5. Bonus buy: because the sale was SO good, I even treated our bathrooms to new towels to hang
for hand drying, etc.
Step 4: With a great big smile...ask your hubby (or do it yourself if you are handier than me) to hang a hook on the back of each person's bedroom door. One hook for each person in each room.
Step 5: Each person is shown their towel and washcloth and told that is the only one they can use!!! Their towel hangs on the back of their door. No exceptions. Can not be dropped anywhere else! If it is, you will know for sure who the culprit is!!! After a bath/shower..it hangs back on their hook.
Step 6: When you clean that rooms laundry-grab the towels on the back of the door!
Step 7: Hide guests towels where only you know where they are!!!
Step 8: Stack and place pool towels in a completely separate location so no one uses them except when they are supposed to!
Step 9: Enjoy all the new rags as washable or disposable cleaning cloths!!
Now....doesn't that feel better????
Dry your hands and enjoy the freshness....
Walk on the bathroom floor without tripping over towels...
Grab the laundry without finding it all stinky from someone's damp towel....
Bless your company with a little special treatment....
And enjoy one less laundry problem in your large family!
I know I am!!!
My daughter does this with her four. She always knows which one was left on the floor instead of on the hook! Even the three-year-old hangs her towel up each night. Clean fresh towels make me smile. I've been know to say that when I'm rich I'll have someone make my bed each day with fresh sheets. Dream on, huh?
ReplyDelete