Do you have a towel washing schedule?

[ShanaMama]

There was a thread recently about how often you wash your towels & linens. I am looking for some practical systems to implement. We will be moving next week into the house we just built. It's large. I have no idea how I'll keep up with all the housekeeping. (I will be getting cleaning help, but there are so many little things to do besides deep cleaning.) Right now I'm thinking about towels. I don't currently have a great system for changing out all the towels in the house. We all use our bath towels several times except for one DD who likes a new one every time. When I notice the kitchen and downstairs bathroom hand towels getting gross I change them, and that usually prompts me to wash all the towels in the house. So it could happen once a week, twice a week, sometimes takes me a day or so to get a new towel down to the bathroom that is towel-less. I'd like to systemize this.
I plan to purchase new hand towels for the kitchen and powder room and a new set of towels for DH & myself. My kids will inherit our old ones. I'm thinking to get two different colors and set up 2 days a week when I change them. So let's say gray goes into the laundry & blue gets put out out. 3 days later blue goes into the laundry & gray comes back out. Am I overthinking things? My kitchen is all grey and white, so grey towels will work well. My powder room is grey black and silver and I plan to keep an eye out for a black towel with our initial. Am I overthinking it with the colors? I can't believe this post got so long. Please tell me you have a system that's really simple and becomes as easy as changing your socks.

[ArizonaGirl]

Well, I don't know if this will work for you but we don't have a crazy amount of storage so I wash and rehang our towels.

Usually every week... sometimes 2 weeks. :bag

[KpbS]

I wash the bath towels and bathroom hand towels with the sheets each week. For the hall bath hand towel that gets the most use, I just throw it into the wash every 2-3 days and replace.

[ShanaMama]

I wash the bath towels and bathroom hand towels with the sheets each week. For the hall bath hand towel that gets the most use, I just throw it into the wash every 2-3 days and replace.

This is where I get thrown. I do most of my laundry on Sunday/ Monday and the occasional load or 3 during the week. So if I take the hand towel upstairs it sits in the laundry room until I wash it & then bring it back down which can be a couple of days.

[KpbS]

I aim to rehang the clean towels when I put the sheets back on the bed (remove, wash immediately, dry, hang) and that is helping me cut down on the number of towels we have in circulation and in storage. When we moved, I found I had a ridiculous number of towels for a family of 5! I donated a bunch, will use these, toss them, and move on to using newer ones.

[baymom]

I'm not sure if this is a good way to do it, but I have multiple hand towels for each bathroom and sets for the kitchen. One goes on the towel rack and 2-4 are in the cabinet under the sink/in the kitchen. I put on a fresh towel every 2 days in the bathroom and kitchen, and replace with the one in the cabinet. I find it easier to have the fresh towels right there, instead of upstairs in the linen closet. Our spare bath towels are all in the linan closet. I mostly wash one load of towels on the weekend. When I used to store all the towels upstairs, I found I'd go way too long before putting out fresh ones.

[BunnyBee]

It's very humid here, so I wash towels twice a week. It's usually Tuesday and Friday. Sheets are Friday. I typically put them right back on the bed or in the bathroom. It's easier than folding and storing (or as my family does it, piling and ignoring), and they're fresh and clean. I do have spares to rotate out just in case.

[Mommy_Mea]

I wash linens (sheets and towels) on Fridays. I strip all the beds and take all the towels out of our bathroom, and the kitchen towels and run the loads. During the week in the kitchen I continuously rotate out hand towels, once a day out every other day. Also, we use cloth placemats and those get rotated as they get dirty. They all go in one bin in the basement, ready for Friday. Until I instituted Fridays, I have no idea how long the linens went without washing!

[specialp]

I'm not sure if this is a good way to do it, but I have multiple hand towels for each bathroom and sets for the kitchen. One goes on the towel rack and 2-4 are in the cabinet under the sink/in the kitchen. I put on a fresh towel every 2 days in the bathroom and kitchen, and replace with the one in the cabinet. I find it easier to have the fresh towels right there, instead of upstairs in the linen closet. Our spare bath towels are all in the linan closet. I mostly wash one load of towels on the weekend. When I used to store all the towels upstairs, I found I'd go way too long before putting out fresh ones.


Same. I would not do two different colors, but just buy a few extras. I wash towels on Thursday. All extra hand towels are in the bathrooms, not in the linen closet. (One bathroom has no storage, but its hand towels are in the next closest bathroom.) I'll put a clean one out every couple of days.

[jgenie]

Same. I would not do two different colors, but just buy a few extras. I wash towels on Thursday. All extra hand towels are in the bathrooms, not in the linen closet. (One bathroom has no storage, but its hand towels are in the next closest bathroom.) I'll put a clean one out every couple of days.

This is what I do. Towels are swapped out every couple of days. I wash when I have a full load of dirty towels.

[belovedgandp]

I have two hand towels for the guest/half baths where the sink is the only thing used on a regular basis. I do laundry on Monday and Thursday, so I grab the towel being used and hang the second towel up. Typically on both laundry days, but at a minimum always on Monday (my bigger wash day). I store the extra towel in the vanity for the bathroom.

DH and I shower at least once a day but do use the same bath towel. I was those on the two wash days. Kids get washed once a week on Monday.

I wash and put away all the laundry on the same day. So I don't collect it until it's being washed.

I produce crazy amounts of laundry in the kitchen. We use cloth napkins and lots of towels. Those get thrown straight in the washing machine as we use them so I know that's always my first load to add to on the twice per week laundry days.

[ShanaMama]

See, this is why I posted here. You guys are brilliant! Hand towels stored where you need them. A designated towel washing day. Thank you!!!

[WatchingThemGrow]

Something that's really helped us is having certain sets in certain bathrooms. I have a 6 pack of hand towels from Costco in the most frequently used downstairs bathroom. The other 5 are crammed into the tiny cabinet below. That towel gets changed out daily probably as it's used A LOT. We have a thinner Sam's club set of white handtowels in the kids' bathroom and they are changed out less frequently, but picking definite days would help me.

Having different sets helps us know where/how many to put upstairs and downstairs.

Which cloth napkins are people using? The ones I had from BBB were just too big for everyday use.

[jgenie]

Something that's really helped us is having certain sets in certain bathrooms. I have a 6 pack of hand towels from Costco in the most frequently used downstairs bathroom. The other 5 are crammed into the tiny cabinet below. That towel gets changed out daily probably as it's used A LOT. We have a thinner Sam's club set of white handtowels in the kids' bathroom and they are changed out less frequently, but picking definite days would help me.

Having different sets helps us know where/how many to put upstairs and downstairs.

Which cloth napkins are people using? The ones I had from BBB were just too big for everyday use.

My kids use Eli's wipes. We're at 7 years with the first batch and they're still going strong. DH and I use napkins I picked up at Tuesday morning.

[ShanaMama]

Something that's really helped us is having certain sets in certain bathrooms. I have a 6 pack of hand towels from Costco in the most frequently used downstairs bathroom. The other 5 are crammed into the tiny cabinet below. That towel gets changed out daily probably as it's used A LOT. We have a thinner Sam's club set of white handtowels in the kids' bathroom and they are changed out less frequently, but picking definite days would help me.

Having different sets helps us know where/how many to put upstairs and downstairs.

Which cloth napkins are people using? The ones I had from BBB were just too big for everyday use.

This is a good idea, too. The downstairs half bath needs to be changed the most frequently by far. The upstairs ones much less frequently, especially now as we'll have more bathrooms.