Family Laundry- minimalism approach

Have you ever packed for a trip?
I have a family of 10. We love to travel the country in our big silver van. Once you get 10 people in there, there is not a lot of space left, so everyone is allowed only a small bag of stuff.

And it works and is simple and glorious.

About 3 days worth of clothes (and laundry quarters) and we can just about go anywhere for as long as we want. Gee, why can't we simplify at home like this?

Well, it so turns out, we can to some degree.

In Minnesota we do deal with distinct seasons, you can not wear summer clothes in the winter or vica versa.

So to simplify life at home, each child has 1 tote of clothes, that fits on a laundry room shelf. I change it out to keep them looking decent and warm/cool enough. The clothes that is out of season (but still worthy of another season) goes in a storage room, organized by size.

Most totes can hold 3-4 pairs of adult sized pants, 3-6 T-shirts, 2 hoodies, and no lack of socks or undies. For little kids, who often needs to change more often, more clothes fits in the same size tote, so it works out well.

The other advantages of this simplifications are that it gets the clothes out of the bedrooms- imagine only a few stray pieces on your child's floor rather than a whole closet full. And it makes laundry as breeze- dirty clothes drop on the laundry room floor (is it really that hard to put it 12" away in the laundry basket?) so I pick it up from there, pile it into the washer, dryer and then throw it back in the totes. When I have time to kill I may actually fold it first.

My husband and I have our clothes in our bedroom- but I do keep mine simplified and off the floor :)