Laundry is a battle you can’t win. Especially if you have kids.
After our second baby, the laundry situation in our home went crazy. There were piles of unsorted laundry EVERYWHERE.
Well, not anymore. Because we DIY’d a system.
Introducing the “Trofast Laundry System” 👇👇👇
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Note: Thread
With this system, your laundry basket magically becomes a ready-to-wear-from drawer.
But first, why?
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After becoming a family of 4, the number of wash categories skyrocketed.
Baby regular items
Baby butt items
Dark toddler items
Light toddler items
Sheets and towels
Wools and delicates
Adult dark items
Adult light items
etc. etc. etc.
We had dirty AND clean piles everywhere. (View Tweet)
We tried creating separate baskets per person. Didn’t work.
We tried sorting and washing on fixed days for an entire day. Didn’t work.
We tried everything.
Until we realized 👇 (View Tweet)
This is not a capacity problem.
This is a bottleneck problem.
No matter how much capacity (laundry basket volume) you allocate, it all comes down to these 3 psychological bottlenecks:
😩 Sorting (pre-wash)
😩 Folding (post-wash)
😩 Putting away (post-wash) (View Tweet)
3 bottlenecks is a nightmare when you think in systems logic.
It means decision making 3 times. And we all know, decision making is painful.
That’s why the number of decisions MUST be minimized.
But HOW? (View Tweet)
By making sure decisions are made ONCE and once only. During sorting.
And then the system takes care of the rest.
How? 👇 (View Tweet)
By creating ATOMIC laundry units.
This system allows sorting, folding, and putting away to be handled in a SINGLE bucket 🤯🤯🤯
In short, your laundry basket turns into a ready-to-wear-from drawer.
Enter: Trofast storage system by IKEA
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This system has only 2 elements: buckets and racks.
Each bucket goes from dirty → clean in 4 steps:
Collection in the rack (dirty)
Washing & drying
Folding (clean)
Back in the rack (clean)
Let’s cover each 👇 (View Tweet)
COLLECTION
We do the collection in these vertical Trofast racks.
Each column is a category, i.e. lights, darks, wools, baby, toddler, etc.
Top two rows are clean. The bottom row is dirty.
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WASHING & DRYING
When we have enough headspace (hey, no rush, no piles anywhere!) we pull a dirty bucket and pour it into the washing machine.
Items inside a bucket can be washed together since they have already been sorted. NO DECISION MAKING 😌
We then dry the items. (View Tweet)
FOLDING
This is the mind-blowing part.
Dried items are folded BACK INSIDE the same bucket. 🤯
Heck, you don’t even have to fold them. Just pile them back in unfolded. They’re clean, that’s what matters! (View Tweet)
INSERT IT BACK IN
In your vertical category, empty one of the half-full clean buckets inside the new clean bucket.
Insert the empty bucket in the bottom row.
Insert the clean bucket in the remaining slot.
Voila, now you have clean clothes and no piles around✨
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ONWARD: Keep collecting your dirty items in your now empty bottom buckets.
Rinse and repeat steps 1-4. (Forever)
This system is bulletproof. (View Tweet)
COST
We sold all of our fancy dressers and invested in this system.
The unit in the photo costs only €55-60 where I live.
We now have 8 of these in our home, handling 8 categories of clothes.
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Trofast is actually a toy storage unit.
But it’s so versatile that we came up with this laundry system.
Best part? You can expand the system as much as necessary, €50 at a time. (View Tweet)
Co-created with dear husband @maanil_ee 🤍🤝🤍 (View Tweet)
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