The Laundry Couch

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There’s a place in my home that I affectionately refer to as the laundry couch. There is much pride and shame loaded onto this piece of furniture – yet, for the past few years, even with COVID keeping us home for some of the time, it’s perpetually been the laundry couch.

You see, we rarely keep dirty clothes waiting to be washed.

laundry

I’ve almost always got a load going, so it’s always clean. I just can’t always make it upstairs to put it away while the kiddos are awake. So instead, it sits.

If you don’t yet have a laundry couch, let me explain the pros and cons so you can decide if you, too, should convert a piece of furniture in your home (#firstworldproblems).

Let’s start with the cons of a laundry couch.

First, the laundry couch is inevitably going to be knocked over. A kiddo will throw a ball, wrestle their sibling, or find the one shirt they really want to wear in their stack of clothes and boom – your lovely built-up piles of clothes are suddenly toppling over. COVID saves me from the obvious, unexpected guests that suddenly need a seat to sit on (though soon, this will be back on the list). And how about the embarrassing opportunities for kids to grab underwear and put them on their heads or throw them around (just my kids?). It may point out flaws in your marriage, as your partner may show you their true colors (i.e., equal laziness to the kids as they grab their socks and leave the rest of their own clothes behind), which leads me to the worst. When the pile gets so big it can no longer fit, you have a HUGE chore to get the clothes to their actual homes. Stair workout anyone? Hmph. My arms and legs are tired just thinking about it.

Now, the positives of the laundry couch.

Not fighting in the morning to pick out clothes for school, as so many of them are easy to find as they are simply on the couch. Or when we’ve been in the yard and are FILTHY coming in, I can quickly grab a change of clothes and have the kids strip down in the entryway without tracking mud through the house. My kids, despite having plenty of clothes to choose from, gravitate toward the same few outfits that just keep getting worn. And honestly, why bother putting clothes away? As soon as one of my kids wants a shirt, they unfold them all out of their drawers or shelves anyway. They go through so many, we just end up washing and drying them over and over and over.

I know Marie Kondo would never recommend this, but I have gotten to the point where I pick my battles, and I’m keeping my laundry couch. Not spending the time to take the clothes upstairs and put them all away allows me to spend more time with the kids. For now, it’s a small tradeoff I can live with. Soon enough they’ll be old enough to carry their own laundry upstairs and put it away and hide away as moody teens. Instead, I’ll enjoy my kids just a bit longer.

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