Never putting laundry away

MawtheMerrier

When the children lived at home - 3 sets of school uniform - and Paw had 5 smart office shirts a week, my ironing basket was a bit like a compost heap - when it threatened to topple over I would turn it upside down and retrieve things from the bottom!
But the impression I get is that younger people tend to iron as and when they need things, if at all.

I'd set up the ironing board in the sitting room in the evenings and iron as I tried to watch telly.

I always wash , dry and iron what needs ironing then put clothes away asap. My daughter on the other hand has clothes all over the place! Clothes waiting to be washed, clothes dry but left on every available table or work surface. I fail to understand why she can't wash , dry , iron then put away. It drives me mad . When children need something clean there is a mad scramble to locate the necessary garment!! I keep quiet of course !!!

I use the smallest bedroom as a laundry room which doubles up as my grandson's room when he is here.

Husband and I both iron our respective clothes and I generally do the bed linen as well, I probably have an ironing session once or twice a week and I put it all away then, but I do smaller sorting sessions with socks and underwear as and when they are washed and dry, although it has to be said there is always one basket of odds and sods that never gets fully cleared. I do remember one of my sons and partner seemed to make heavy weather of sorting their laundry and putting it away, a veritable Mount Everest of it on one of the beds never appeared to diminish much.

People live differently, there is no right or wrong when it comes to tidiness.

I would have been very annoyed if my mother or mother-in-law interfered, with folding and ironing clothes in my house.

When the children lived at home - 3 sets of school uniform - and Paw had 5 smart office shirts a week, my ironing basket was a bit like a compost heap - when it threatened to topple over I would turn it upside down and retrieve things from the bottom!
But the impression I get is that younger people tend to iron as and when they need things, if at all.

kittylester

I'm not sure that clothes are ironed nowadays!

DH insists on laundry being ironed but he does do it!

Does no-one put clothes in an airing cupboard?
I couldn't put clothes away in a drawer after steam ironing, they need to be aired.
Am I just old-fashioned?

GagaJo

I never iron either. If you hang carefully on the line and fold, 99% of laundry doesn't need it.

Still trying to perfect this one I hang very carefully gently stretching each item out to shape. Items are then put on hangers until I am ready to iron but to get that just pressed effect they still need a quick whip over with the iron.
My Jersey dresses are the best for no ironing but Linen not a hope however you hang it

I never iron either. If you hang carefully on the line and fold, 99% of laundry doesn't need it.

I do my Dd's laundry to ensure the washing is only done when it can be dried outside (she drapes it all over the house to dry otherwise, adding to the damp problem).

She never puts it away and it at times gets mixed up with her dirty laundry and clothes that haven't been worn end up in the laundry basket again. It drives me crazy.

Ah bed linen - so wonderful getting into a bed with good quality ironed sheets. So worth the effort.

Daughter and younger son don’t iron anything. They don’t even have irons. Elder son(ex Royal Marines) irons everything. I just iron outer wear - not bed linen etc not underwear. OH irons his own stuff.

I used to have an aunt like that of OP. You have to move clothes in the living room to find a place to sit down. I never minded.

I cant remember the last time I ironed! Waste of time.

I do have a heap of clothese thrown on a chair in my bedroom where no one can see them. I never bother to hang them up as they are only kaftans for lounging around the house.

There was a thread on mumsnet from someone who was expecting an inspection by the landlord's agent. The advice was to put all the launry away, wash the dishes, and make the bed. I never did any of these things when I was a tenant. You took the place as you found it. The agent was reminded that she had come to inspect the fabric of the building and not my housekeeping.

I have a fairly relaxed attitude towards housework, but even I don't like piles of laundry around. I hate ironing but do the patting and folding thing and then put it all away in the appropriate cupboards. But we are all different. It's hard when others are more casual about such things, but we have to mostly just bite our tongue I think.

My OH's mother was a tough cookie. She just had to be, for all sorts of reasons. But I am so thankful she taught her sons to iron, and do basic repairs like replacing buttons, etc.

I dry shirts, etc, on hangers- then do my ironing, and OH does his. Much to the amazement of friends and neighbours

I fold and put away clothes once they are dry. Don't iron though!

Very much think as you do. In fact being neat and tidy has helped my depression and anxiety over the years as there was order in my life. Also, I was naturally very neat as a child and hated my clothes to be crumpled. My DD is the exact opposite and lives out of plastic storage boxes despite having a lovely house and loads of clothes. Hey! Ho!

I loathed it when my mother and father came and tidied/ironed my laundry.
Just saying

Anything awaiting ironing is in the laundry basket. Anything not needing ironing is folded and put away. Anything waiting to be washed is in the linen bin. I can’t imagine living with heaps of laundry, clean or dirty, around the place.

Would drive me nuts!

My two are very different. One is very tidy, irons and folds everything and her wardrobes and draws are perfectly aligned, matching hangers, etc.

The other not so much, but she has 4 laundry baskets- one for her, one for OH and one for the kids. Things get taken out of dryer, folded and put in respective baskets, and each takes their own to their room and put in draws and on hangers. GS uses the hanging steam 'iron' for his suits.

I couldn’t cope!
I would have to sort it out😬

Wash it,hang it up/ out to dry depending on weather.
Put away in wardrobe on hangers/ folded in drawers,ironed if and when required.

Unfortunately cotton clothing needs ironing in the summer but my small flat it is difficult to find somewhere with plug nearby to iron.

You only have to read the decluttering threads on here to realise that degrees of tidiness vary greatly. I never had a large pile of ironing but I am not tidy. I think I quickly realised that most clothes don’t need ironing if they are hung up properly to dry.

I like ironing and consider being left alone to get on with it once a week one of life’s treats. People think me strange.

This really reminds me of younger days when 3 generations lived together. My grandmother and I were both ‘neat freaks’ and my mother was untidy. Conversely she was very clean. You would never find a speck of dust, carpets were vacuumed at least twice a day, windows glittered and she had the whitest washing I have seen before or since. The downside (as far as we were concerned) was that her immaculate ironing was to be found in piles on the nearest free surface to her ironing board. If kitchen items were out away it was not necessarily in the right cupboard and the labels were never to the front and her Mail to be actioned was reminiscent of the tower of Pisa. My grandfather and father were both very tidy men. I have since wondered whether this was some sort of rebellion, or maybe we were the ones with the problem.

My children have inherited the neat gene, my grandchildren not so much!

I always fold/hang clothes and put them away after they’ve been washed. DD and SiL wash clothes then they placed on the spare bed until there’s a mountain of them. When I’m due to visit they are moved off the bed onto a sheet that’s placed up the corner in their bedroom and I spend the next day or two folding it all and putting it away! Fortunately I don’t have to fold and put them away before I make the bed!