(Disclosure: The following post was sponsored by Whirlpool. I received product and compensation, but all opinions expressed are my own.)

Update: While we remain grateful to work with Whirlpool, this particular washing machine and dryer both developed issues after a few months of using them. The washing machine never really seemed to get clothing clean and no matter how often we washed it out, even with the recommended affresh cleaner, our laundry continued to smell unclean. The Dryer touchscreen started having issues after a few months and as of March, 2021, the washing machine completely stopped cleaning and draining. After much research, we have decided to purchase a new washer and dryer instead of investing money in fixing them. While I can appreciate technology and time-saving features, it turns out I am really not a bells and whistles kind of gal and prefer nobs & buttons & more traditional, simple machines.

As a home-educating mother of 4, it feels like we are always on the go. Did I mention our four children are all little ladies under the age of 7?! If you have children, you know this means that they each wear about a load of laundry a day:D  I absolutely love our days at home, but I am also all for the little life hacks that can save time and simplify our lives right now!  I’m not sure if it’s I’m still recovering from the holidays or it’s just this season of life, but it definitely feels like there is more to do and less time to do it. Anyone else? Is this just part of motherhood? Anyway, I was beyond stoked when we got to try the new Whirlpool® Smart Front Load Laundry Pair with Load & Go™ XL Plus dispenser a few months back.

The features are beyond cool! For example, The Whirlpool® Smart Front Load Laundry Pair with Load & Go™ XL Plus dispenserallows you to pre-load detergent and fabric softener for up to 40 loads, meaning you can skip a step with this beautiful, time-saving feature! Being able to pre-load our detergent and save a little time is so lovely!

Plus, many of these features make it easier for the girls to help me. They think the touch screens are the coolest thing, and they aren’t wrong. The imagery makes it easy for the girls to follow directions and they truly enjoy helping with the laundry as much as they can!

The girls have truly enjoyed helping me with laundry since we started using our Whirlpool washer and dryer! We can save our favorite settings, and I can simply have the girls push the onscreen button, which they get so excited about,  and it’s that easy to get our laundry started. We are truly grateful for this beautiful washer and dryer and wanted to share a few personal time-saving laundry hacks that we’ve adopted to help make laundry as enjoyable as possible.

TIP #1: MAKE YOUR LAUNDRY SPACE COZY

If you know us, you know we like to re-purpose as much as possible. I’m a little too short to comfortably enjoy having our washer and dryer stacked, so we have ours next to one another. We had an old door laying around in our basement when we moved in and decided that it would make the perfect table top to help store baskets of our laundering goods and give us a better place to fold laundry. I topped the table with an old linen shower curtain that we had. You could also easily thrift something similar, or even use a sheet or table cloth. This doubles as decor and also provides a clean and washable surface for the table. Any other friends have a creepy basement laundry room? It’s the only space we had washer and dryer hookups so we’ve done our best to make this space cozy and try to keep anything we may need for laundry in this space so we’re not having to run up and down the stairs each time we do laundry.

That leads me to what we keep up on our table top. Baskets, always baskets! They make for the prettiest storage and, again, can easily be thrifted. We keep our detergents, softeners, stain treatments, our DIY fabric refresher and all of our dryer balls here in baskets on our little homemade table.

Also, wool dryer balls:  another beautiful, non-toxic, time-saving laundry hack I hope you’re using! They speed up the drying time, soften clothing naturally, are hypoallergenic, and because they cut down on drying time, they save you money. I’m not actually sure how often you’re supposed to change them out, but I give mine a good wash with towels every 6 months or so and they’ve held up for several years!

TIP #2: DIY LAUNDRY REFRESHER

Another fun laundry tip is you can add your favorite essential oils to the balls to make your laundry smell delicious without having to add any toxins to the mix! I love using lavender & citrus oils!

I store our essential oils for laundering in pretty thrifted crocs as well. I store our laundry balls in pretty thrifted glass vessels as well. To spruce up our basement a bit, I put some fresh lavender on the top of our washer and dryer. Not only does it smell good, but helps this creepy basement feel much more cozy! 

I mentioned above a DIY laundry refresher! Sometimes our laundry just smells musty. I feel like our towels and linen napkins get this way especially. I mix white vinegar and a couple drops of my favorite essential oils and add about 1/2-1 cup of it to our laundry to keep our laundry smelling fresh! We also find that this helps soften our laundry. To treat stained linens, I use the pre-soak feature on our Whirlpool and pre-soak linen items in 2 cups of vinegar for 30 minutes. Before I tried this hack, I could never get stains out of linen and now when I do this , stains come out easy peasy!

Also, one of my favorite things about the washer is theFanFresh® option! If you know you won’t be able to switch laundry right away or want to start a load and go run some errands, Fan Fresh modekeeps clothes fresh for up to 12 hours so you can finish the laundry when you’re ready and avoid that musty smell that occurs when the laundry sits wet too long. This is just genius and I’m convinced a mom must have come up with the idea! 

TIP # 3: STORE YOUR SOCKS

Another time-saving hack we have adopted is collecting and storing all of our socks in a big bag or basket. We put all of the clean socks in here and then while we watch movies, we all pair them up together as a family. It makes it a fun family responsibility instead of another boring, tedious chore.

To learn more, visit https://www.whirlpool.com/laundry/washers.html#load-and-go.