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Jan 14, 2024

How A Laundry Sorter Gave Me My Weekends Back

Published February 21, 2023 Rose Maura Lorre Share this post My Saturday

Published February 21, 2023

Rose Maura Lorre

Share this post

My Saturday mornings used to be a total drag, and it was all because of laundry.

Every weekend would start the same: Wake up and think about the colossal mound of dirty towels, socks, hoodies, workout gear, sheets, and the like teetering atop my hamper. My family of three shared just the one hamper, stashed away in my bedroom closet, but together we managed to produce a pile of laundry so massive, the very thought of it overwhelmed me.

Because I am the family laundress (my husband is the cook), sorting this heap was up to me. And because I did the laundry only once a week (since I didn't have time to tackle it amid my usual weekday routine), it felt like I had to schedule my whole weekend around getting the laundry sorted, washed, dried, and folded. The fun stuff that weekends are ideally meant for—lazy afternoons with a puzzle, long walks with the dog—would have to wait. (Sorry, Milo.)

Something needed to change, so a few years ago I swapped out that hamper for the Honey-Can-Do Heavy-Duty Triple Laundry Sorter, one of Wirecutter's picks from our guide to the best laundry baskets and hampers. I used it to set up a simple presorting system, saving myself about two-ish hours every Saturday that I used to spend sorting.

And because I didn't have to carve out that chunk of time to sort before washing, laundry transformed from what once felt like a dreaded, weekend-long slog into a no-big-deal task that I could easily tackle whenever it was convenient.

Three reinforced cloth compartments make it simple to sort laundry by type, while the wheels are great for people who need to scoot, rather than lift, heavy loads.

*At the time of publishing, the price was $50.

The Honey-Can-Do sorter occupies a wider footprint than the old hamper did, but it's still slender enough to fit inside my closet. It consists of three rectangular pouches that hang on a steel frame via a pair of curved metal handles. The handles are removable so that you can put the pouches through the wash alongside your other laundry.

Because the pouches are made from a white cotton-poly blend, I was able to label them easily (though perhaps not in the most elegant way possible) with a permanent marker, sticking a piece of cardboard inside each pouch as a writing surface to ensure that the ink wouldn't bleed through.

I marked the pouches by the type of items that should go in each. Warm-wash pieces (no need for hot!) like towels, sheets, socks, and underwear all go together. The middle compartment is for delicates (for my husband, that means his treasured concert and brewery T-shirts). Everything else (which I wash together on a normal, cold cycle) goes into the right pouch. Even my then-7-year-old could grasp the concept.

Labeling the compartments for presorting turned out to be only one of the ways in which the Honey-Can-Do sorter helped me make my laundry much more manageable. Each pouch has an 11-pound capacity, just the right amount for my front-loading HE washer. (In Wirecutter's washer and dryer guide, we recommend loading an HE washer with about 8 to 12 pounds of laundry.)

That means I can just eyeball the sorter every morning, and if one pouch is full, I take it out of the frame, bring it down to the basement laundry, and start a wash; occasionally, I’ll throw the machine-washable pouches in with the laundry when I’m running a load on cold.

The sorter is also much easier and less clunky to maneuver than laundry hampers and baskets. If your washer and dryer live on the same floor as your bedroom, or if you have an elevator in an apartment building, you can just wheel the entire sorter wherever you need to go. I have two flights of stairs to contend with to get to and from my laundry machines, and I’ve found that I greatly prefer going up and down steps carrying one of the sorter's pouches instead of a laundry basket.

The pouches offer a comfortable grip and are easy for me to hold by my side with one hand (leaving my other hand free to grasp a banister if necessary), whereas baskets block my view of my feet on a staircase, sustain cracks when I inevitably misjudge a turn and plow into a wall or doorjamb, and make me feel slightly off-balance, like I might fall and break my neck.

Do you know how many household accidents are caused every year by laundry baskets? A lot! That doesn't mean there aren't great ones—we recommend a bunch, including a basket that nestles against the hip and a stackable laundry basket from The Container Store that's surprisingly light—but they’re just not for me.

I’ve since repurposed my old hamper as a basement catchall for old clothes and fabrics I’ll eventually bring to textile recycling. It's still great at handling the one job it was designed to do—holding a bunch of clothes—but switching to a sorter that allowed me to offload one of life's many tedious chores was an upgrade I’ve thanked myself for many times over. Milo and I are both much, much happier.

This article was edited by Alexander Aciman and Catherine Kast.

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