People often loathe performing laundry tasks. They feel like cleaning their dirty clothes is a never-ending chore that takes too much of their time and requires too much effort. Yet, in many instances, the real problem is that people simply don’t approach cleaning laundry in the most efficient and optimal ways. To make cleaning and drying your clothes an easy, fast process, consider these five best ways to do laundry at home:
Interior of a real laundry room with a washing machine at home
Upgrade Your Laundry Room
The appearance and efficiency of the room can positively or negatively impact a person’s laundry experiences. Reduce the amount of clutter by organizing your laundry room. Remove any items that aren’t directly related to doing laundry.
All too often, a laundry room acquires items that have nothing to do with washing and drying clothes. Typically, this happens because the room is located near a garage or basement and becomes an adjacent storage area or it’s a separate room that has a lot of extra space that slowly becomes an easy place to store things.
Once you’re done, renovate the room. If the room has gray or dark-colored walls, repaint them with light or bright paint shades or install tiles in lighter tones. Dark colors can make a room feel cramped and uninviting. They can even make you feel depressed or tired. Light colors make a room feel open and welcoming. They can make you feel energetic and happy, especially when you use white, off-white, light cream, and yellow tones.
After you complete the physical room renovation, change how you store your cleaning supplies and dirty clothes. Install separate baskets or hampers for sorting clothes by color and type.
For example, you might install one basket for dark clothes, one for light clothes, and a third for delicates. You might use horizontal wall shelves within close reach of your washer and dryer to place open bottles of detergent or dryer sheets and an enclosed storage unit for bulk cleaning supplies.
Select the Right W/D Settings
The brand and models of your washer and dryer come with specific cleaning options. Study the washer manual and then use the appropriate cycle and water settings to guarantee that your clothes are correctly and thoroughly cleaned during the first cycle so that you don’t have to re-wash or perform unnecessary extra rinses.
For example, you might select a “casual” or “normal” setting and cold water for dark t-shirts. If your washer offers a second rinse option that you need because of soft water or after you used extra detergent for a tough cleaning job, always pick the setting that automatically initiates the second rinse so that you don’t have to manually set it after the first rinse ends.
It’s also important to use the appropriate dryer settings. The wrong ones can not only shrink, burn, or even melt certain types of fabrics but can cause you to waste time drying clothes longer than necessary because you used too little heat during a cycle. You might also need to use no heat with certain fabrics to prevent shrinkage. Look for an “air dry” or “cool down” dryer setting.
Prevent Dye Color Bleed Accidents
When colored dyes leach out of clothes into the wash water, you lose time trying to restore stained clothes to their original colors. The simplest way to prevent a dye color bleed accident is to wash clothes of similar colors together.
For example, you might wash any blue color t-shirts with blue jeans. It’s especially important to wash pink and red colors together because the red dye can discolor even some dark colors.
Yet, you might accidentally miss a small piece like a red pair of underwear or sock when washing light-colored clothes. If you still have concerns about dye bleed accidents, use color catcher sheets in the wash that are specifically designed to absorb dyes during the wash cycle.
Handle Fabrics and Fasteners Carefully
People often experience frustration and lost time in the laundry room because they improperly handle fabrics and fasteners while rushing and then have to deal with a damaged piece of clothing. You can prevent incidents by taking the time to prepare your clothing properly before you put items in the washer.
For example, remove or cover anything that might snag threads, such as the hook side of hook and loop tape, pins, and zippers. Wash and dry delicates that can tear or catch on accessories like buttons in a mesh bag designed for them.
To prevent fraying and knots in thin straps of bras and camisoles, strings, and sashes, wash them by hand or in a delicates bag. After your clothes dry, fold them immediately while they’re still warm so that you don’t have to iron them later to remove wrinkles.
Always Remember These Extra Tricks
Lastly, there are some simple tricks you can use to reduce the time you spend on laundry. For example, speed up drying time by placing a thick, absorbent towel in the dryer.
When the clothes are mostly dry, pull the towel out and hang it to air dry. To prevent microorganism growth, never use this towel in the bathroom. Use it exclusively for this purpose.
If your clothes have wrinkles, hang them in the bathroom on the day you need to use them while you take a shower so that fabric threads loosen and smooth out as they absorb the heat and steam.
Spend less time trying to whiten white clothes by drying them on a clothesline on a sunny day instead of in the dryer. Sunlight can both bleach and sanitize them. Wash towels every week so that you don’t have to use as much detergent or double rinse to kill bacteria.
Conclusion
As you can see, these laundry tips are perfect for helping anyone improve their laundry experiences. In summary, if you update your laundry room, stick to the best machine settings, reduce dye bleed and fabric damage incidents and remember a few extra tricks, you will discover that you’re more eager to use the laundry room and able to complete tasks faster than ever before.
