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Elizabeth
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What clothing systems work in your house? How many clothes? How do you store them (in season and off season)? How do you keep up with laundry? anything else clothing-related? Let's figure this out!
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Elizabeth Foss is no longer a member of this forum. Discussions now reflect the current management & are not necessarily expressions of her book, *Real Learning*, her current work, or her philosophy. (posted by E. Foss, Jan 2011)
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teamgriswold
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| Posted: March 15 2005 at 7:53pm | IP Logged
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Oh...please, please do share! I've got laundry coming out the wazoo! And we only have three children so far! For starters I really need to get rid of clothes in my closet, being that I really only wear a few things aside from my "mommy uniform" of sweats and t-shirts. I've been thinking of maybe limiting the # of outfits each child has...is that ok?  I wouldn't have much trouble doing that with my boys, Robby (6) and patrick (3) but Abigail (20 months) is the first and I'm having WAAAY to much fun dressing her, until of course it's time to do the laundry! I'd love to share in your clothing wisdom!
Blessings,
X-Hail
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Bridget
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When I cut us down to 6 or 7 play outfits and 2 dressy outfits for each child it worked well. We just have to do laundry every day. Like everything else, more has crept in.
My dream laundry room would have shelves to store out of season and off size clothes in clear bins. And a big table for folding. Not to mention 2 of the large capacity washers and dryers.
Right now I'm trying to figure out how to get rid of the children's dressers and find some old desks for their rooms. The older children need a quiet place to do school work.
We have a small guest room. After the round of house guests this summer I may turn that into a central clothes room for the children. I'm not sure how well that will go and I want to be pretty sure before I do all that work. Thinking and planning... 
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Bridget, happily married to Kevin, mom to 8 on earth and a small army in heaven
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teachingmyown
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I love the idea of a central clothes room, especially for my four girls. They share a bedroom and it is crowded enough without two dressers and laundry baskets everywhere.
The pitiful thing is that I never get all of the laundry sorted and put away. There are always miscellaneous items, i.e. something out of season or grown out of that needs to be put in the right bin. And then there are the socks! My laundry sorting area is my husband's recliner, outside the laundry room door, and I can't remember the last time he got to sit in it.
My most recent challenge is that my toddler loves clothes. She is constantly emptying drawers and baskets, putting on layers of clothes, or throwing anything she can find into the laundry room. Then my 3 yr old who is very helpful puts her dirty clothes into the washer and sometimes the dryer often on top of a clean load that is in there.
I just dream of a laundry room I can turn around in  ! My laundry room is about 5feet long and maybe 3ft wide.
As for limiting outfits, I find it hard for the little ones who wear through clothes so fast. But I don't think anyone has 7 outfits. My older three would wear the same thing everyday if I let them, so they aren't as much of a problem.
Does anyone else limit clothing?
Also, do you try to keep everything for the next child or do you pass it along with the faith that when you are in need someone will pass along to you?
Great thread, Elizabeth!
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Molly
wife to Court & mom to ds '91, dd '96, ds '97, dds '99, '01, '03, '06, and dss '07 and 01/20/11
Remembering Today
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teachingmom
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| Posted: March 15 2005 at 11:06pm | IP Logged
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teachingmyown wrote:
Does anyone else limit clothing?
Also, do you try to keep everything for the next child or do you pass it along with the faith that when you are in need someone will pass along to you?
Great thread, Elizabeth! |
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Well, I just replied to the old topic without realizing that the thread had been moved over here. If you read my post over there, you will realize that I obviously do not limit clothing. But that will change now. And with five girls, I have always kept most things that are in good shape, knowing that they would be put to good use in the future. Part of that is my natural tendency to want to keep everything, and part is emotional attachment. I'll look at an outfit and think, "Oh, she was so cute wearing that at the beach last summer", or "I remember when she got that from Grammie three Christmases ago." Then I have a difficult time giving it away because of the memories attached to it.
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Molly Smith
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I started the limiting mindset after a similar discussion at magnum-opus last fall. I know it will take me a few seasons to work it out, but I've definitely improved for the spring. I just bought the two big boys each three short sleeve solid polos, five solid or striped tees and one camo tee at Target. Neither of them had much that made it from last year. Matthew's shorts will get handed down to Timmy, so I'll need to pick up some new shorts for Matt. That's it, I'm not buying anything else for them. Their dress pants still fit them and I'll keep a few t-shirts from last year for messing around.
Sarah has plenty leftover from Jeanne and Jeanne still has things that fit her from last year. The only thing Jeanne needs are some dresses. Patrick has lots of leftovers from his brothers.
I would like each child to have 2-3 nicer outfits for church or parties, and then maybe 7 outfits for every day wear and a couple of knock-down-drag-out-muddy-day outfits.
Regarding laundry, I've always had each child have his/her own little laundry cube and we do wash once a week. But, right before Patrick was born I put one laundry tub in the hall and everyone's laundry went in there each day and I did laundry each day. (I was afraid Patrick would come on day 6 and I'd have a week's or more worth of laundry sitting there!) Anyway, I'm considering going back to the communal laundry basket. I could just do one load a day for the kids and it wouldn't be overwhelming to them to put just one outfit away.
Then, too, their favorites are ready to wear sooner and maybe I'll resist the temptation to buy too much. And I wouldn't need quite as much, either. Well, we'll see. I'm curious to see what you all do!
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Molly Smith in VA
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Molly Smith
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Oh, I just wanted to add that in the LL Bean catalog yesterday they had short sleeve sold tees for 3/$24. Granted, I only paid $5 at Target, but if you're looking for something a little better quality $8 is pretty good!
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Molly Smith in VA
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ourladyslilac
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We do laundry every day (or every two days) One load dark, one load light. No one wears reds except for baseball uniforms which get thrown in with the dark load.
I have two baskets - a white one for the lights and a blue one for the darks, everyone can figure out what goes where so there is no sorting when it is time to run a load.
Everyone has one winter Sunday Mass outfit, one weekday Mass outfit (they wear it for an hour and fold it up and wear it the next day for church - wash the weekday Mass outfit just once a week since it is only worn to church)
These outfits I buy at a department store. I wait for a sale and then buy something of good quality. My oldest daughter is almost 13 so I think the $30 sweater on sale from $70 will last until she leaves home since she is finished growing. Better to buy less of a good quality than lots of an inferior quality.
Ditto for summer church clothes, one outfit Sunday Mass, one outfit weekday Mass. Makes it easy to get dressed for church.
We try to wear play outfits for two days unless they get really dirty. They have 4 or 5 play around the house outfits and one or two "going somewhere" look nice play outfits, or vacation clothes as the kids call them.
I hang on to special baby clothes and nice outfits, about one box each boy and girl clothes, then a couple boxes of sweats and vacation clothes.
Does anyone use the "Space Bags" that you suck the air out of with a vacuum?
I just ordered those for storing blankets but haven't received them yet.
Marianne
Four children - 12- 4 with one due in June
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Mary G
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ourladyslilac wrote:
We do laundry every day (or every two days) One load dark, one load light. No one wears reds except for baseball uniforms which get thrown in with the dark load.
I have two baskets - a white one for the lights and a blue one for the darks, everyone can figure out what goes where so there is no sorting when it is time to run a load.
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Marianne:
This is what we do! We're lucky because the laundry is right off the dining room so I can throw a load in, get the kids started on school, throw that one in the dryer, start the next and have all the wash done before lunch.
We found, if we waited to do laundry for once a week, not only did we have TONS of laundry, but we also had tons of clothes to span the week. In other words, if you wash every day, you need fewer clothes. This works great for us especially with the little ones who grow so fast -- by the tie they've worn out their clothes they're too small anyway, so we need to buy more.
Buying "high quality" only works for the older ones (14 and 16) as they've basically stopped growing. But they're so picky about what to wear, I just get church clothes that are good quality.
Now, if I could just get my littles to all be the same shape and size, it woud make my life much easier -- my daughter (5) is tall and slender so she can't get any hand-me-downs and my two younger boys 6 and 2 are completely opposite shapes so hand-me-downs don't work either. We buy inexpensive for them as they grow before they can really use them.
What a great topic 
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stefoodie
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not really a clothing system, but this is how ours works:
we travel a lot, so if we can go somewhere for 2 weeks doing no laundry and still have clothes to wear, then that's about right. i'm able to gauge if/when we need more clothes using this formula, because when we pack, i find out someone needs more socks, or a couple more pants, or a sweater, etc. ideally we'd do our shopping off-season, but it hasn't happened regularly enough for various reasons (budget, time).
i've stopped doing in season-off season storage, except for heavy winter coats, because we invariably forget something's in storage and by the time we remember the clothes are too small to wear.
laundry is done a bit like flylady, everyday, first thing in the morning i do one load. if i have more time during the day i'll do more but usually this is enough. [the 13-yo helps out a lot in this department and i don't get on her case about anything laundry-related b/c i figure anything that i don't have to do is a blessing).] system goes: first load: a) put things in washer. next loads: a)transfer clothes to dryer, put in another load into washer. while waiting for water/detergent to agitate, sort dirty laundry into sorter and/or fold/hang dry clothes. dry clothing is sorted into piles (one for each person) as they are folded. clothes are brought up into the rooms and put away according to who has the biggest pile of dried clothes (also meaning the person who has the least clothes left in his/her closet/dresser). when we travel and come home with a mountain of laundry, the system changes to -- bring all clean clothes upstairs, fold/hang and sort and put away until we get back to normal mode -- and we try to accomplish this within a day or two of being back home.
as for limiting clothes, here's how we do it: each person has a dresser and a hanging closet. the drawers are sorted into play clothes-cool season, play clothes-warm season, sleep clothes, "going out clothes" (nice enough for eating out or church) warm season, going out-cool season, and underwear. when the clothes don't fit in the drawer, it's time to weed (donate). old "going out clothes" become play and sleep clothes (we don't use pajamas as our kids are hot all the time).
we used to keep clothes all the time in the basement *just in case* we have another child, and that system worked for us too, but now we've gotten rid of a lot of them, inspired by the posts about hoarding on CCM a couple of years ago. i did keep some special pieces that the kids might want to pass on to their own one day.
and yes, we do hand-me-downs.
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stef
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teachingmyown
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Do you all have a source for inexpensive, but high quality, sandals for the kids? That is one of my favorite things about summer, putting away the shoes and socks!
In past years I have gotten the athletic sandals from Lands End. We really like them and I haven't found anywhere that beats the price while maintaining quality.
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Molly
wife to Court & mom to ds '91, dd '96, ds '97, dds '99, '01, '03, '06, and dss '07 and 01/20/11
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Bridget
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I usually get Lands End sandals, too. I have tried to go cheaper, from Wal Mart or something, but they don't last the season so I have to replace them. The inconvenience of having them break, usually when we are out, and then the expense of replacing them, makes it hardly worth it.
The only way I can come up with to go cheaper is to get several garage sale pairs for each child. Then they are kind of disposable. But you would have to be a master garage saler to get several pairs in the right sizes for six children. I'm no where near that level yet.
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Bridget, happily married to Kevin, mom to 8 on earth and a small army in heaven
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stefoodie
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i try to get birks on ebay or some other good quality brands, but we've had luck at the local stores with good nike ones -- lands' end is the default if i can't find anything local or don't have time to shop ; i've given up on payless sandals, they don't even last the summer, at least not on my kids' feet.
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stef
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MEBarrett
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I usually get the sandals from Stride Rite or Lands End. They just hold up better so I think it is worth the money. I do buy dress shoes at Payless or Target because they don;t get much wear in the summer and I can;t see spending a lot on them. My girls live in play dresses in the summer and keds or white sandals are the shoes they live in. Actually they are mostly barefoot in the backyard because of the pool.
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MEBarrett
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Bridget wrote:
| I usually get Lands End sandals, too. I have tried to go cheaper, from Wal Mart or something, but they don't last the season so I have to replace them. The inconvenience of having them break, usually when we are out, and then the expense of replacing them, makes it hardly worth it. |
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Did you ever try to replace sandals in August? Or buy a bathing suit? It's easier to buy snow boots. Around here the fall/winter stuff goes out in August with the back-to-school sales.
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Mary Ellen
Mom to seven beautiful kids
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O Night Divine
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teachingmyown
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Mary Ellen, actually I do try to buy things at the end of the season, on clearance, for the next year. Often you can get good deals at Lands' End on their Overstocks page. Kohl's is my favorite place to shop sales other than online shopping.
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Molly
wife to Court & mom to ds '91, dd '96, ds '97, dds '99, '01, '03, '06, and dss '07 and 01/20/11
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Elizabeth
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| Posted: March 19 2005 at 6:48am | IP Logged
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MEBarrett wrote:
Did you ever try to replace sandals in August? Or buy a bathing suit? It's easier to buy snow boots. Around here the fall/winter stuff goes out in August with the back-to-school sales. |
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I'm with you there! I tried to buy mittens in early February while there was snow on the ground. Not a single pair in our local Target, but they had bathing suits
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Elizabeth Foss is no longer a member of this forum. Discussions now reflect the current management & are not necessarily expressions of her book, *Real Learning*, her current work, or her philosophy. (posted by E. Foss, Jan 2011)
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teachingmyown
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I ran into the same things with mittens, at Target also. I ended up buying these huge adult mittens for my kids.
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In Christ,
Molly
wife to Court & mom to ds '91, dd '96, ds '97, dds '99, '01, '03, '06, and dss '07 and 01/20/11
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MEBarrett
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| Posted: March 19 2005 at 6:28pm | IP Logged
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An easy mitten pattern even a young girl could do it. Just in case you need it for next year.
I love the Land's End Overstock catalog. In November I was able to get their knit playdress, long sleeve in all three of my girls sizes for $12 a piece. I bought two for each it was such a deal. They wear them constantly.
Elizabeth, I was in Costco today and was able to get three Laura Ashley dresses. $14. Two for Kelli (3) and one for Erin (5 until 4/9). Kelli and Erin will match. A pretty white dress with a rose print. When they wear them I'll take a picture of my "wild Irish roses" (emphasis on wild) and share it.
Another deal was the tank style Speedo one piece bathing suits for girls for $12. They have the wider straps and are not hight cut so I find them more modest than many suits out there. I don't want to tell you what I spent in the Land's End catalog for modest bathing suits for the girls this year. I bought the surfer shirt and skirt bottom for all three girls and the surfer shirt and trunks for the boys. EEEEKKK.  I like the shirts for the modesty and because my kids fry in the sun. Nothing worse than sunburnt shoulders.
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Mary Ellen
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cathhomeschool
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| Posted: March 20 2005 at 7:51am | IP Logged
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I try to keep enough clothing to get us from one laundry run to the next, plus a couple of nice outfits for church or special gatherings with extended family. I do laundry every 5 days or so, sometimes more often. (We have an oversized washer.) So we have about 7 of each thing for the kids. The littles can share in a pinch, so they don't actually have 7 of each. In winter when they haven't gotten out and sweated, they wear the same pants two days in a row. Like Steph, we travel a lot, so that's an issue too. Often, though, our trips cover more than one climate (up to Tennessee then down to Florida and back home), so we end up packing pants and shorts. And we always do laundry while we're gone. (Not by choice, just by necessity. We don't have space in the car for all that clothing, even if we owned it!)
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Janette (4 boys - 22, 21, 15, 14)
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4Real Forums : Mothering and Family Life
Topic: Clothes
