Laundry Makeover

Doing the laundry can be the most tiresome of all the daily chores, but if you give your laundry a spruce-up the job won’t seem quite so onerous. Shannon has some ideas for brightening up this most important room.

• First thing is to tidy up and throw out all those old bottles, rags and things you never use.
• Bring in lots of laundry items in bright and bold colours – ironing boards, dirty laundry bins, drying rack, clean laundry container (1 each per household member), folding table, peg containers. You have to do this chore nearly every day so you might as well surround yourself with bright things.
• Use pop up laundry bins – maybe one each for colours, white and delicates – to divide your dirty laundry. When the bin is full, it’s time to put a load on.
• A shelf unit can store each family member’s clean laundry containers. Put all clean laundry in the containers, and ideally the family member will then put away all their clean clothes!
• A clothes rack is great for hanging your ironed shirts on. It’s on wheels so the clothes can be transferred to your wardrobe uncrushed.
• A clothes drying rack is essential for indoor drying on those raining days. It’s also handy for laying your knits out flat for drying so that they don’t stretch out of shape.
• Another handy gadget is the circular hanging peg rack. All your smalls can be pegged to this round hanging rack, and it’s very handy for trying a quick handwash in a small space.

• Ever wondered why it’s only ever the blue pegs which go missing from the washing line ? It’s because magpies are attracted to blue shiny objects and are renown for collecting them.
• Be environmentally conscious and conserve water by only washing when you have a full load
• AAA rating machines and white goods conserve the most energy and are the best products to buy. Most top loaders use 153 litres of water per wash. The most energy efficient machines are “best practise” front loaders that only use 68 litres of water for the same size wash.
• Washing can be made more enjoyable. Put aside a couple of hours, put on some music, and while the washing machine is going, soak your delicates in the laundry sink, and do your ironing. Get it all done in the one go and out of the way for the rest of the week !
• Install an outdoor shade screen over your washing line in the back garden. It not only stops your washing from getting saturated in an unexpected downpour and hinders any bird droppings from soiling your clean washing!