Wednesday, January 25, 2006

My laundry woes.


Life in a new house is always a series of adjustments, but the worst adjustments of all are the unexpected ones.

This house came with a washer and dryer, hooked up in the garage. We knew from the first day we considered the house that this would have to change, because Todd needs lots and lots of garage real-estate for his tools...and because I don't want to do laundry next to a table saw covered an inch deep in sawdust and grease. Also, the garage smells like a dog's toilet, which I think isn't too far from the truth. Not pleasant.

The house has a downstairs storage closet located on the same wall as the washer/dryer hook-ups, just on the other side of the wall from the garage. So we planned to expand the closet so it could accomodate a stackable washer and dryer, and thus spare us both from a garage/laundry conflict.

Last week, Todd hooked up our new stackables, in the garage for now, until he and his dad can do the closet re-model, hopefully next month. I had six loads of laundry waiting...more than usual, because things got backed up during the last frantic days of moving. I hauled the first load down to the garage, and holding my breath against the dog pee smell, programmed the washer.

As I pushed the buttons, I noticed that the green number in the LCD window said 55. I honestly, fleetingly, thought for a moment that this was the washer's speed limit. (I may have hummed a snatch of "I Can't Drive 55.") Then it dawned on me, to my horror, that this was the load time. From the first push of the button to the last revolution of the tub...fifty-five minutes.

Worse news followed when I crammed that first load into the dryer and again, programmed it. The LCD window read 1:36. As in one hour and thirty-six minutes to dry the load that I'd been waiting for an hour to finish washing.

This saga began at 4:15. By the time I went to bed at 10:30, I had completed and folded three loads of laundry. A fourth was still drying, a fifth sat in the washer waiting for the dryer, and a sixth was still dirty in the basket.

I've never really minded doing laundry. As household chores go, it's way above cleaning toilets...it's really probably the only chore I don't hate. Until now. I've always been a get-it-done-at-once laundrywoman, which is possible since there's only two of us dirtying clothes in this family. I take an afternoon and do three or four loads while I'm scrapbooking or reading or putzing around the house. In our condo, the laundry room was steps away from the bedroom, which made laundry day a total breeze.

On Friday night, I sensed that this era was coming to an end, and that laundry may shoot to the top of my hated household chores list. I understood, when we looked at the stackables, that the loads would have to be smaller and probably more frequent, simply because the tubs were smaller. But I never dreamed the time limit would be so much longer. The only way to cope with this 155-minute-per-load problem is to do a load a day...maybe throw it in the washer as I leave for work, throw it in the dryer when I come home from work, and fold it and put it away before bed. I can't tell you how much this depresses me. I used to think about laundry exactly once every 5-to-8 days, freeing my mind for infinitely more important matters. Now I have to think about it every day. Goodbye, Nobel Prize, I guess.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Seriously? Stackables take that long to wash/dry? With only four of us laundry is a never ending chore. I don't think I could ever do this - and I have been told by the powers that be that this is my next washer/dryer. Maybe I should make him start doing his own! :p