Laundry Update

This post is inspired by a question I recently received from an American who hopes to move to New Zealand in a couple of years. She read my previous laundry post where I moaned about the constant washing and tiny machine sizes here in New Zealand and wondered how I was handling this small, but very, very important thing now that we’ve been here for awhile.

So here’s the deal: when we were searching for a new home, I prioritized having a laundry room in the house. I didn’t want the laundry to be in the garage. I don’t want my clean undies hanging around with car exhaust and saw dust from all of my husband’s projects. And this isn’t an absurd request in a Kiwi home. Not every house has it, but plenty do.

We had to purchase both a washer and dryer for our house when we moved in, and they had to fit under the laundry room counter, which was a standard size hole with a counter top. Almost all 7kg to 9kg machines have the exact same footprint so its really just a cost and capacity question. My American self had to go with the biggest size possible, so we went for 9kg. Are these machines smaller than my gigantic Samsung’s back in the US? Absolutely. Do I mind anymore? Nope. Not one bit.

In fact, when we were visiting the US back in January (you know, back when things like international travel was a thing) we were staying in a house with very traditional giant laundry facilities, and I still found myself doing a load of laundry every day and hanging most things to air dry. I’ve discovered that air drying rarely takes longer than using a dryer - especially when houses have central heating which is a whole other blog post. It is honestly easier to hang things right out of the washer than to dry, then hang. I never would’ve considered this if I had stayed in the US. It never even dawned on me that air drying was anything other than an inconvenience for certain garments. (And yes, I realize that is a whole bucketful of privilege showing.)

Now there are certain things I absolutely insist on drying because I want them soft and fluffy: towels, sheets, and jeans. I usually dry the kids pyjamas, too. But the rest of the stuff? I started air drying it long ago and no one noticed or commented. It’s easier on me and uses less power, so I’m adopting a more Kiwi way of doing laundry.