Laundry hampers - help?

[Susie]

I am getting super frustrated with the laundry hamper situation in our bedroom. Anybody want to help?

We have one wicker hamper like this:

and my frustration with it is that I *just* did laundry literally 2 days ago - 2 loads! - and it is already so full it doesn't close all the way. Like one hoodie and one pair of jeans of Calvin's (especially if he doesn't push them down) and it's all over.

Calvin would leave it like that - nay, with crap piled on top of it - for days, weeks maybe. It's just one of those things that drives me crazy, and I feel like I need to "fix." It's right out there in the open in our room. And I just did laundry, damnit!

I don't know if we need a 2nd (and 3rd?) hamper or what. How do you keep yours from overflowing almost immediately after laundry day?

3 seems ridiculous (and possibly like they would take up an excessive amount of real estate in our modest room), but we do separate into 3 piles: whites, darks, and permanent press (our no-iron dress shirts).

This is how much space we have:





(There's the existing basket on the left)


(I assure you it is never this picked up!)

I suppose the alternative is keeping one hamper in the bedroom and keeping additional hampers in the basement by the washer/dryer, and running clothes down when the bedroom one gets full - but that seems like a pain.

WWYD?

[boiler717]

We have 2 of those hampers for 2 people and I do laundry once a week

[Deleted]

I'm no help. I got tired of the wicker ones not holding anything (and I'm usually good about staying on the laundry but I don't have time for full every other day either). I bought one of those plastic rubbermaid ones with the air vents and open tops. It's not pretty but it's functional. I just stash it in the closet.

Otherwise, In other instances I've just used a laundry basket. Easy to take down, it's one load exactly!

[Deleted]

I have a bamboo hamber from BB&B. Then whenever it's full I take it all down to the basement and put the laundry in my sorter from Target (4 hampers: bleach whites, no-bleach whites, lights, darks). Then I do laundry when one or more of the sorters is full. But my hamper holds at least a load's worth, probably 1.5. I bet you could get a deeper/taller one in that corner between your tall dresser and the wall?

If we're ever able to save up enough for our kitchen (final) remodel, I'm putting in a laundry chute between the kitchen/hallway to the basement with a gigantic hamper underneath it and getting rid of hampers upstairs altogether.

[Deleted]

We have two similar shaped hampers, one colors and one whites. We turn them sideways and push them against the wall. They take up less wall space when they are turned and we don't have to do laundry as often.
I found that when one is full it is only enough for one full load if I mixed the colors and whites. I don't want to mix and I hate doing half loads because it is a waste of electricity. That is more of the reason that I got two.
I think that you might be able to fit two turned sideways if you stick them in the corner near the bureau on the opposite wall of where they are now under the window. You might have to move the furniture down the wall a little bit.

[peach]

I keep a plastic hamper on our floor. Totally unattractive but it'w what works. As soon as it's full I take it downstairs to wash...I keep thinking about putting hampers into our closets but I have afeeling we'd just throw our dirty clothes all over the floor like we used to before I started leaving a basket out.

DD has a basket in her closet and it works well.

Do you have room in your bathroom for a bigger hamper? Or a closet somewhere close by?

[pitterwoo]

Our hampers aren't the most attractive, but they are very functional. We have these:


Lights in the white one and darks in the blue one. Each holds about 2 loads if I let them get really full. They are in the bathroom.

[Susie]

Jan 11, 2013 19:43:14 GMT -5 pitterwoo said:

Our hampers aren't the most attractive, but they are very functional. We have these:

We actually have one of those too. I use it to carry up & down the stairs, since our laundry's two flights of stairs down.

That used to be our only laundry basket, but Doggie D kept stealing things out of it. I got the wicker one because it had a lid. I forgot about that as a quasi-parameter.

Jan 11, 2013 19:37:08 GMT -5 @forcuatro said:

I found that when one is full it is only enough for one full load if I mixed the colors and whites. I don't want to mix and I hate doing half loads because it is a waste of electricity. That is more of the reason that I got two.

Yep, samesies.

Jan 11, 2013 19:37:08 GMT -5 @forcuatro said:

I think that you might be able to fit two turned sideways if you stick them in the corner near the bureau on the opposite wall of where they are now under the window. You might have to move the furniture down the wall a little bit.

The only trouble with moving the armoire down the wall is that there's not much space to open the drawers; they hit the bed. But I could fit two under the window in that corner. Or possibly to the right of the armoire?

Jan 11, 2013 19:43:14 GMT -5 peach said:

Do you have room in your bathroom for a bigger hamper? Or a closet somewhere close by?

Not really. There's only one bathroom for all 4 bedrooms, and it's not very spacious.

I could remove the bottom few shelves from the linen closet in the bathroom to fit a 2nd hamper, but I'd need to make sure it was "easy" for Calvin - otherwise clothes will just pile up in the bedroom!

All the bedroom closets are the tiny lame sliding door ones you see in our room

[peach]

I understand. Our laundry situation sucks too.

We have a hamper on the floor - dirty clothes go in, I wash them. Then I take up the clean clothes and they often sit in the hamper...so we have a dirty hamper and a clean one. Or the clean clothes get put on the bed but I don't fold them in time and we throw them on the floor to go to sleep....then they stay on the floor for another day or two. then the dirty gets mixed with clean...

It's awful. The one area I am really not on top of...the rest of my house is always tidy and generally quite clean.

[TBM]

We used to have one small hamper upstairs and a laundry sorter by the washer and dryer. I didn't mind emptying the hamper and taking the stuff down to the sorter daily, and whenever there a]was a full load of something in the sorter it was easy to just run a load right then.

Now we have just the hamper upstairs and no sorter, and it is kind of a pita and the laundry area is a lot messier than it used to be.

[rachelgreen]

We have this Michael Graves corner hamper from Target and we love it. You can take the lining out and carry that but we just keep a collapsible hamper behind this one and transfer the clothes. It holds a LOT, way more than I would have thought for a corner unit.


(hopefully my attempt at PIP works...

[mrs.jacinthe]

We keep a laundry basket on the floor of the closet and a sorter in the laundry room. When it gets full, I take it to the laundry room and sort it into the sorter. Then I put whatever clean laundry is in there in the basket and take it back to the bedroom to put away. The putting away always gets done same-day, since the basket has to be empty in order to put more dirty clothes in it.

[hbomdiggity]

I can't help. I have yet to find a decent sized hamper. I have also never seen a 4 part sorter - only 3 - which I would love.

and I also think the talk of "laundry rooms" is cute. (my w/d is pretty much in my kitchen.)

[Susie]

Jan 11, 2013 20:25:34 GMT -5 @callmefia said:

Also, we don't wash a lot of things after one use (except underwear of course!). It keeps my clothes from getting beat up in the washer. I hang my work clothes back up and then I go through and wash the most worn things when it is time.
My pants wear out quickly enough from thunder thighs rubbing so it doesn't help if I wash them and break the fibers down all the time.

We use the same towels for a few uses before washing also.

We do too, but they still end up in the wash eventually! Hoodies more frequently than usual because we have a 10 week old puppy who sometimes, ah, leaks on them.

Jan 12, 2013 0:26:38 GMT -5 hbomdiggity said:

and I also think the talk of "laundry rooms" is cute. (my w/d is pretty much in my kitchen.)

...and... yeah.

I'm really tempted by the idea of a sorter in the laundry area, but I'm also trying to be realistic. There are two flights of stairs and a baby gate between my bedroom and the corner of the basement where the washer/dryer live. It's a PITA to take laundry up & down. Will I really do it (I know Calvin won't) every time our one basket is full?

[mac08]

We just keep one wicker one in the upstairs hallway right outside the bathroom door (bathroom is too small to keep it in) then a 3 section sorter plus a few laundry baskets in the laundry room in the basement. I know that's not what you wanted to do but I honestly don't find it too inconvenient, I just sort the stuff from the wicker one into the basement piles every few days. We have many different loads we separate (colors, whites, H's dress clothes, colored towels and sheets, white towels and sheets), so I find this system to work best.

[pickle123]

We have one of those 3 divider sorters....one for lights, one for darks, one for towels. It's in our closet.

[aweilba]

I know what you mean! I just bought a wicker one two weekends ago because the only way DH will put his dirty clothes in the freaking hamper is if it is out in plain sight. We used to have a white Rubbermaid one that I kept in our closet. But no. He would just shove his dirty clothes behind the door, rather than put them in the hamper. I put it in plain sight in the corner of our bedroom for a week, and he actually threw his clothes in there.

I went and bought a cute wicker one because I thought that'd look nicer and get him to put his clothes in there. Well... looks nice but doesn't hold squat, especially not a lot of DH's 6 foot 3 size man clothes and mine together. So now DH puts his clothes in the wicker one, and I put mine in the Rubbermaid one inside of the closet. Our solution to the wicker hamper situation.

[redheadk]

I have 3 in our closet. 2 big ones for darks & lights and one small one for other things that need special washing (sweaters , bras, etc). The big ones each hold about 2 loads. I purposely planned space for the hampers when we redid the closet because we struggled with this, too. It seems small but it is irritating every single day!