I’ll admit: in the past (and occasionally the present) I have had a tremendous amount of trouble getting our clothes ironed. I have no trouble getting them washed, dried and put away. But ironed? That’s a different story.
I detest wrinkled clothes, although I will also readily admit that my standards have greatly decreased since having children. The moment you put a baby on the hip of your freshly pressed shirt it becomes as wrinkled as ever. But the wrinkles are oh so worth it in this case!
So how do I get my ironing completed these days? This is what works for me while all of my little people are, well, little.
- I decide if an item really needs to be ironed. If it just could use a little touch-up, I put it in our steam dryer for 15 minutes. It is really effective in making clothes have that ‘freshly washed’ appearance that we all love. If I didn’t have a steam dryer, I would look into one of the wrinkle-releaser spray products.
- I have an ironing shelf in my laundry room.
When folding clothes, I pull out the items that I know will need ironing: my husband’s work pants, little girl Sunday dresses, etc. When putting clothes away, I automatically put those clothes on my ironing shelf. When it comes time to iron, all of the clothes that need ironing are in one spot. I don’t have to run from room to room hunting down items that need to be pressed. Honestly, at this point in my mothering I need things to be obvious! - I incorporate ironing as part of my laundry routine. If it wasn’t part of my routine, I can assure you it would never get done. I only iron once per week. Most of the time, I iron when my kiddos are taking naps or after they are in bed in the evenings. If I only iron once per week – as opposed to once per month! – the ironing pile takes less than an hour or so. I don’t iron when my children are awake because I can totally see the baby pulling the iron on her head or some such other awful event necessitating an ED visit. I want to avoid that at all costs!
When my husband and I buy new clothes we try to buy ‘wrinkle-free’ cottons and clothes that do not require ironing. It really does save time! And these days, I am way too busy to spend a ton of time ironing every week…even though it’s a chore I really don’t mind.
How do you get your laundry ironed each week? What is your routine?
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Hi!
I seriously cannot wait to try out your post yesterday about using dish soap on greasy stains. I hate those! However, I’m in need of some advice. How do I get stickers off from shirts that have already been washed and dryed? Is it possible? (They were inside out when I washed them, and I didn’t see the name tags from VBS. Darn!)
Thanks,
Stacey
That just made me laugh out loud about the VBS stickers! It has happened to me so many times! I’ll send you an email on how to get rid of them. 🙂
-Lauren
I am so bad about waiting. I wait so long that the pile scare me! LOL
I need to make it a habit. Make it part of the weekly routine. Good tip!
Kristin
My strategy is to try to get them out of the dryer immediately if I know there are clothes in there that would need to be ironed if left for any length of time (like my work clothes). I actually usually stop the dryer a minute before it’s done and put them straight on a hanger. This cuts down the amount of ironing I need to do by like 80%.
For the other clothes that just have to be ironed regardless, I hang them on a hanger immediately and those get hung in my craft room cause that’s where I keep the iron and ironing board. (It’s really just a craft walk-in closet, but I like calling it the craft room. 🙂 And a closet rod is conveniently there to hang the clothes-to-be-ironed.) Once or twice a month, I pull out the ironing board and iron everything while watching Wheel of Fortune after work. (Usually just whatever random day my feet aren’t feeling too tired after work, or if I’m running low on work clothes in the closet or need a particular item that’s hanging up.) I try to iron them all, but sometimes I just stop whenever I get tired of ironing and put the rest back to iron next time. Maybe not the perfect solution, but works well enough for me! 🙂
I’m impressed you can get all of the ironing done during one 30-minute show of Wheel of Fortune! Ha! 🙂
hi…need a solution…i ironed some shirts on my top load washer…i had a towel folded once under the shirts…i now have foggy scorch marks on the top of my washer….how do i remove….