Organising clothes

[Jon]

I have a number of questions regarding this and wonder what others do.

1. If you wear a t-shirt, or top, do you wear it again another day or does it go straight into the dirty clothes basket?

2. If you wear it again, where do you put it? I mean if you put it back in the cupboard, how do you know how many wears it has had?

3. What about, say, jeans? Where do you put them at the end of the day? How many days do you wear them for before washing?

My current method is for my different jumpers, I chuck them in a pile in my home office, trying to keep them flattish to avoid creasing. About 40% effective. But it looks a mess. Jeans get chucked on the top of some draws. i..e I am pants at all this. (ho ho).

Sometimes I find I have some 'advanced' life skills in the bag, but the basics are not there!

 

[Bee]

I get 2-3 wears out of tops, depending on whether I

a) spill stuff down the front (occupational hazard of not being flat-chested), or
b) have been doing something particularly strenuous (and therefore sweaty)

Washing clothes too often wears them out faster and is therefore more expensive - not to mention time-consuming.

Jeans are a bit different. I don't wear them for work, unless it's a Friday, so I change out of my work clothes when I come home and put jeans on. That way, I get 2-3 wears out of my work trousers - and up to a week for my jeans. If I was wearing them every day, I'd probably wash jeans every 3-4 days.

I have hooks on the back of my bedroom door where I hang up tops that I've worn, but can wear again before they need to be washed. Jeans and trousers get folded and live on top of the washing basket (also in my bedroom) until they need to go into the basket!

 

[Bee]

I have also dispensed with hangers - I don't own any at all - and wardrobes. All clean clothes are stored in chests of drawers. If something needs ironing before I wear it, that's what I do. I don't iron anything else - including bedding.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

For me, it depends on the weather and my activities, but sometimes I can get a 2nd wearing out of something. My dear darling of a wife can often be a little bit of OCD, so we use color-coded hangers. I will hang the "2nd-wearing-eligible" items up on a door-hook rather than in the closet.

However, both of us are somewhat klutzy, so we have a side bet about who wears the "piggy" title when we go out to eat. The first person to get spots on clothes gets the title. (It's just bragging rights: "I stayed clean longer than you did!") When that title gets awarded, the clothing that is the evidence of "pigginess" gets washed; it is no longer eligible for 2nd wearing.

In rare situations, I might wear something a 3rd day.

Believe it or not, I don't have any jeans. When I was working government jobs, they weren't allowed unless you were a wiring technician or were part of a server physical assembly team. For exercise and housework, I use shorts or sweat-pants.

 

[Jon]

Some great ideas there. I like Bee's hanging them on the door thing. It is a bit like the Kanban system. You have the columns ToDo - Doing - Done. ToDo is the wardrobe, Doing is the door hangers and Done is the washing basket! When I lived in Brighton, I remember having part of my wardrobe which would be "In Progress" items. So, if they had been worn once, they might go in there.

I like the Doc's coloured hanger solution. I could have one set of colours for fresh, one for used, one for stinky, if I am trying to prise a 3rd day out of them.

 

[Bee]

It's my 6-Sigma training put into practise. Coloured hangers is also a neat solution - but for me, a little over-engineered. I tend to work on the KISS principle.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Bee, I would also have kept it simple. But my dear wife is ... meticulous, shall we say? It keeps peace in the house if we have the color codes and stick with them.

 

[Jon]

I tend to think the coloured hangers is an example of KISS. Why confused yourself when you don't know if your top is in progress because the hanger colours aren't different? Yet for some odd reason, I feel a bit opposed to throwing out all my existing hangers and going for lots of cheap plasticy coloured ones. Hmmm...

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Then buy some cheap electricians tape, which comes in multiple colors. You might be able to find such things at your equivalent of "The Dollar Tree." (Where every item is guaranteed to be $1 (USA) or cheaper.) Put a small loop of colored tape on the upper part of the hanger. Color code them that way.

 

[Jon]

Nice lateral thinking there Doc. Smart!