apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I have a pretty nice laundromat and I still hate going there! Wish I could do it at home...

very strange poll options - what do plants on the windowsill have to do with laundry?

I do my own laundry at home, but when on vacation I let the steward aboard the ship do it for me.

Actually, I do my laundry in "a few small pots around the home."

I just got my washing machine 2 days ago and I'm so in heaven over the moon about it. My dryer is still out of stock, so just hang drying. But just the luxury of, "oh i want to wear this tomorrow" and just being able to without having to go to the laundry is fantastic.

Laundry is the one area in my life where I'm a complete Diva. I made dozens of calls till I find a laundry place that would pick up & deliver --- bulk. I don't want to deal with one bag o' week. I send it out every 3 weeks - it's typically about 5 BIG bags for our household.

I recently got a Haier portable washing machine and its great! I roll it out of the closet, hook up to the sink, do my laundry, then roll it back. I still have to hang dry but its way better than the laundry mat.

heh. In doing some early spring cleaning in my file drawers this last weekend, I came across my new year's resolutions for 2002. At the top, in huge bold letters, was "NO MORE SENDING OUT LAUNDRY! DO IT YOUR DAMN SELF!"

I'm happy to say that I've kept that one. Of course, it helps having a laundry room in my building.

I actually have a washer/dyer (same machine, no transferring from one to another) in my unit; however, when I have a lot and am feeling lazy, I definitely have a service come pick it up and deliver it when they're done. So much easier that way.

I have a laundry room in my building. A bit of a pain to go down to the basement and back up 3 times, but worth to save the money.

I can't justify having my laundry done for me. I do about 40 lbs each time and it costs about $9 - it would be $50 or so to get it done.

Button-down shirts though I always get laundered (never dry cleaned). Totally worth it since I cannot iron one for the life of me. The $1.30 a shirt is totally worth more than the 20 minutes per shirt it would take me (and still wouldn't be as good). Luckily I wear t-shirts to work so this doesn't happen all that often.

I have a washer/dryer combo, like gretchen. It fits under the counter in the sink room (the pseudo-room before the room housing the toilet and tub). It's a half-load machine, though, so I run laundry every few days. For big items like comforters and rugs, I use the laundry room on the property.

I have a washer at home but not a dryer, that's Europe after all :) I hang laundry to dry, inside in the cold season, on the balcon when it's warmer.
It's not like I have many other choces since laundromats or laundries do not really exist (very few and very very expensive) just dry cleaning shops are common, buildings do not have common washers either (sometimes they still have common rooms for hanging laundry and possibly to iron it). The washing machine is the very first thing we bought in this flat after we moved in: for a short period we washed the small laundry items by hands and took the big ones at my mother's in law (5 hours away by train).

I have a laundry room in the building, but my partner has laundry in her house, which is included in her rent (incl water / hydro) so I go there.

I don't have a washer/dryer in my apartment, so I do hoof it down to the laundromat every two weeks or so. It's Sketch City, but it's cheaper than dropping it off. I also work for a regional theatre, so if I'm truly in a bind, I use the costume shop's.

I answered "other" because I have a washer/dryer in one machine. Common in Europe but not here, the machine washes then dries clothes all in one machine. I only had one space in my apartment where I could put a washer and dryer; a closet off the hallway which was large enough and just happened to be adjacent to the plumbing in the bathroom. The problem was that I don't have 220V power or gas to run the dryer and could not run vent piping to the exterior of the building without ripping up my floors. Also building code wouldn’t allow a horizontal run long enough to reach the exterior and my HOA wouldn’t allow the vent. Originally I found a combo washer/dryer called a "clothes processor" made by Equator which was imported from Europe. About 2 years ago LG started manufacturing a similar machine only with double the capacity so I sold my old one and bought the LG. I love it. I put clothes in and it washes and dries them all in one cycle. http://www.lgwasherdryer.com/

I just read Gretchen and OneWallKitchen's comments. Sorry to be redundant. Hopefully the link will help if anyone is interested though. I forgot to mention the process is very energy efficient too.

i just did two ginormous bags of laundry and one big bag of that dryel stuff. everything smells like suavitel...swoon!

i don't have to schlep to a laundromat, but i do have to go into the basement of my building. when the super lets the garbage pile up down there, it's narsty.

i fondly recall having a washer/dryer when i lived in a house - being able to wash the welcome mat, a pair of sneakers, something the cat just puked on, an outfit for tomorrow, etc - that convenience was awesomeness. but now, eh, not so bad.

except... I HATE IT when i'm like 30 seconds late and someone's taken my clothes out. i've had to do it, but i give a big buffer of like 5-10 minutes yo!

damn vultures!

So few doing drop off?? For 75 cents a pound, I'm beginning to think it's even better than sitting at home waiting for one load to wash at a time. (And you can just about double that with the all-in-one machines mentioned below.) I cherish my evenings and weekends, and the relief I feel—every two weeks or so—when all I have to do is leave my clothes on the way to work in the morning and pick them up, clean and folded, on my way home, is well worth the 20-25 bucks. The expense also doesn't seem that great when I wash often and don't let the loads become unbearable. Plus, I can also consider the trade off: skipping the over-priced ($10 a piece) salad or sandwich lunch just two days out of the week. Works for me!

I drop it off, but have the cleaned laundry delivered. The building I live in doesn't quite have enough washers and dryers to accommodate the needs of the tenant-owners. Although I planned to save money by doing my laundry myself, I found that having to do my laundry at three in the morning wasn't worth the savings.

As for the plants, I sort of assumed they were being irrigated with the grey water from the washer....

i use the washer and dryer at my boyfriend's house...

I have a laundry room in my building... with brand new HE machines to boot!! (I'm on the HOA board so we were sure to make that happen) But because of all the dogs in our small building... it's a little disconcerting finding dog hair in your freshly washed panties when you don't live with anything hairy! ew!!

I didn't use to mind the jaunt up and down three flights of stairs... over and over - until my boyfriend suggested we could spend more time together if I brought my laundry to his house - he has High Efficency/ stacked washer and dryer in his Bathroom.

So I do it at BF's now. No stray dog hair.

My fiance and I moved into a new apartment two years ago whose only drawback was the lack of a washer and dryer. So, we've stockpiled clothes (and an insane amount of socks and underwear) so that we only have to do laundry once a month. It took some getting used to, but I've grown to like our trips to the laundromat, if only for the extra bonding time (and the fact that the laundromat's connected to a bar).

I have a pay washer/dryer in my building but sometimes if I am inclined to drive my car I will take my washing to work. Our office has a machine (that until i started using it was never used). This only works if we aren't seeing any clients that day and even better if I know I'll have the place to myself.

ARGH! I live in the village and we do not have laundry in our building and are not allowed to install units in our apts. So I have to take it out - I am anal and do not like to have other people do my laundry but the last laundromat just closed. I am now forced to drop it off. I hate that.

To DM Studio-
Do you find your LG does not fully dry your clothes? We were in PC Richards and the salesman said it takes 6 hours to dry clothes and we put off purchasing until we did a little more research. Until then, we have laundry picked up, which is not ideal for us.

I consider myself incredibly lucky to have laundry in the apartment. I used to like doing laundry, but now I hate it...still, I'm grateful to not have to go anywhere to do it. I air dry a lot of my stuff, though, which is a pain--I usually use my shower rod. Not ideal, but it works.

I just bit the bullet and bought the brand new LG washer/dryer combo! It is a thing of beauty and I am sooo excited not to have to go to the laundromat anymore. The one I bought just came out and has some really cool features like a steam cycle to refresh clothes and an allergen cycle for bedding etc...It is really easy to hook up and so far it works great! The drawbacks are the initial cost of the machine and that drying does take awhile. It is also a little on the large side especially for an NYC apt. There are great reviews and helpful advice about these units at epinions.com. I am in love SWOON!

Right angle,
My LG does fully dry my clothes although the Equator machine I had before did not. The Equator took up to 4 hours unless you did very very small loads. With the LG the clothes feel damp when I pull them out but they dry within a few minutes. I think it helps that I live in a dry climate with very low humidity year round which extracts the last of the humidity from the fabrics. The LG has a speed cycle and it takes 1 hr 51 minutes to wash and dry a full load of towels or blue jeans. I hope that helps.

After schlepping it either down stairs or down the street for nearly 20 years, I was so very thrilled to finally have my own washer/dryer in my last apartment. I spent four glorious years doing laundry whenever I wanted, never having to carry it more than six feet from the bedroom.... Then I moved to NYC...

Now I drop it off on the way to work, and pick up on the way home. Not as convenient as my own, but still pretty easy... I may have to carry it two blocks, but I don't have to actually do it.

(It is a bit weird having somebody else touching my soiled stuff.)

Another European with a washer/dryer combo in our townhouse.

We have a laundry room in the building. However, the landlord is now suing all the tenants (who have been here over a year) to pass through part of the costs for the utilities in that laundry room. Even though the machines are pay machines. Yup, they can do that. Even if I had NEVER been to the laundry rooms, they could do that. Scary, isn't it?

I only have space for a washer at home. Though, I COULD buy those one on top of the other types, but my washing machine is enough.

I dry my clothes in the house and my sheets and towels downstairs at the Laundromat.

Why waste heat (energy) when I can use the humidity to help my dry apartment in winter?

i have a w/d in my condo. i insisted on it when i was homebuying. i know me and knew if i didn't have that convenience (among other things) i just would not be able to deal with it.

plus i have limited closet space and having that hamper of dirty laundry is actually like space saving storage! i can only fit so much stuff in my closet and drawers so it's like a rotation of clean and dirty stuff.

I have a washer/dryer in my apartment, I really want to do my laundry when I feel like. I don't use a dryer, with a dehumidifier my laundry is dry in a few hours and my apartment smells so good!