household chores

this is an important poll btw its ok if u need time to consider but fuck an other option

cooking is the most satisfying when i'm doing it, but the cleaning up sucks. yardwork is fun, but i'm glad i don't have to do it all the time.

voted cooking.

oh this is which one u LIKE THE BEST if the img @ the top was too cryptic

laundry

i dont think cooking really counts

no it counts its a total chore

the worst is by far yard work

cooking should not be a chore but I voted for it anyway

of the other three, yard/outside work wins

I mean, if the choice is cooking and that choice ensures that someone else doing the cleaning?? Fuck, everyone's invited over for dinner.

Laundry is the worst.

Cooking is great fun 95% of the time but a chore when I'm tired or lazy. Yardwork is about half fun, half chore. Laundry is the worst.

cooking is the best, and not at all a chore

yardwork is fun when the whether's nice

cleaning is the hardest to get started, but def the most satisfying to have completed, and generally improves my mental health the most

laundry is boring and stupid

i cant believe so many ppl like cooking i h8 it so much

my parents have this space age european microwave that only understands binary and german so i cant even manage leftover takeout right now.

i just stood there with a cold plate filled w/ pasta yelling "warm this up" and making fax machine noises @ it for like five mins but nothing happened

u guyz im so hungry

lollin @ u

laundry

I voted cooking, because I don't feel it's a chore, but I feel guilty about feeling that way. It SHOULD be a chore. It was a chore to my mother and hers before her. It was long the bane of bachelor existence, before food became so cheap that TV dinners, fast food, and takeout were actually economical alternatives. I love cooking, but what makes me feel guilty is that I only do it when it's FUN... I don't do it day after day as an inevitable duty. God... how much much money would I be saving if I did?

the worst is by far yard work

If you have a yard, you signed up for yard work. No pity there at all.

feelin guilty about cookin is next level neurosis, dude

Read the post again

i find cooking a total and utter chore

you hate cooking you hate life
cooking a meal makes it so much more enjoyable. i cooked my ass a steak tonight, with some buttery steamed spinach & a shitload of beer.
fucking flavor country man.

kenan you said that you feel guilty because cooking is fun and not a chore

I feel guilty because I only cook when I think it'll be a fun thing, to do, and cooking every day would make me feel almost righteous. Most households have always have someone who cooked every day. And of course it was a chore.

you hate cooking you hate life
cooking a meal makes it so much more enjoyable. i cooked my ass a steak tonight, with some buttery steamed spinach & a shitload of beer.
fucking flavor country man.

no way like sometimes ill eat somethin delicious @ a dinner party or w/e and ask for the recipe and ill make it myself and its never the same. havin some1 cook a wonderful meal 4 u is the truest bliss imo i would do all the dishes 4 this

laundry is pretty obv the worst

Laundry is at the bottom, yeah.

I think cooking is fun, too, but yet...isn't that one of those things a lot of married women complain about doing all the time? I can sorta understand kenan's guilt.

I did everything on that list except cook today.

Cooking is a pain. I mean, you can let weeds grow, your clothes can stink, and the whole room can go to sty, but you can't let yourself starve to death. It's one chore you can't ignore.

i don't really enjoy any of those tbh

I think cooking is fun, too, but yet...isn't that one of those things a lot of married women complain about doing all the time? I can sorta understand kenan's guilt.

To maybe clarify, there's a little bit of guilt, but not the kind that keeps me up at night. It's not like the kind of guilt that comes with not working hard enough, or being more interested in my own happiness than that of the world in general. That's big-ass guilt. Cooking only for pleasure is very light in it.

I feel sorry for anyone who thinks cooking is a chore/boring/messy. And I dont buy the "women complaining about cooking for men" thing cos I know quite a few women who hate/cant cook and men who love it.

So yeah cooking. Wd stay home and live barefoot in kitchen if someone'd keep me, to be honest with you.

Cleaning can go fuck itself upside a broom.

I want to secretly be a 50s housewife living on sherry and baked goods.

The suckitude of the cleaning is proportional to how long its been since I've done it last. If I haven't scoured the tub in three months -- which is easy to do, since I only take showers anyway -- yeah, that is some bone-cracking elbow work. I never like mopping. That's the same amount of bad no matter what, since it's the same floor area. Beating the rugs is no damn fun, either. But all of that is offset by how shiny and pristine you feel after you're done (and have had a long shower).

Ugh I dont, I feel exhausted and broken and the house never seems clean no matter how much I try. Something's wrong with me though, even vacuuming and doing some sweeping hurts my back something bad.

And its all those little things, like the toilet bowl and the cat's damn litter, and the cds scattered everywhere to put away and the 1004957349857 plates and cups and saucepans and the bf who never does anything to help and .

...ahem excuse me.

haha

I live alone. Less stuff, no blame to spread around at all. Like it this way.

i always feel better after cleaning i like the way a room feels after a good cleaning the way it smells open and lighter its nice v. worthwhile even if it is a pain 2 start

Yeah starting is the problem. Once I do, though, I can't stop until the shit shines like the top of the Chrysler Building.

Yeah in all honesty for me cleaning's become a painful chore because I'm a clutterbug hoarder. And now I'm in a house with very little built in storage, and havent really unpacked/sorted out the things that came when we moved 8 months back. I had to throw SO MUCH SHIT out when we moved. 8 years of random crap crammed into a large, wall-sized built in in the big bedroom. I was so embarrased, it was like the Magic Pudding, all this shit just kept falling out.

The suckitude of the cleaning is proportional to how long its been since I've done it last

totally. and you are correct about not being able to stop. household stuff is like the only thing that evaporates my (currently self-diagnosed) ADD. like once i get into the cooking/cleaning ~ZoNe~ i am unstoppable and ruthless in my execution.

also when i am done its like suddenly i am able to concentrate on life's other minutiae, like sorting my mail and shit, or studying. if my kitchen's messy my brain is messy

this is why i hate roommates: i'll go OCD on the kitchen and feel dope about it and then come home a few hours later and there's shit lying around. even if it's just a bowl in the sink or something my heart fills with rage and i want to kill everyone who ever put a bowl in a sink

even if it's just a bowl in the sink or something my heart fills with rage and i want to kill everyone who ever put a bowl in a sink

Feeling this. And yet, when I have had roommates, I've been so much less motivated to clean it up. Not my mess!

exactly. i am a billion times more organized and tidy when i'm only keeping track of my shit. opening up the fridge and being confused about what belongs to whom and how old it is basically guarantees that shit will get nasty. ditto the bathroom and every other household chore. plus i'm living with a 23 y.o. (subletter) who (like myself at 23) has very different ideas about what is important to keep tidy.

itt i bitch about roommates

if my kitchen's messy my brain is messy

I said for years, even before I was properly diagnosed with ADD, that the cleanliness of my apartment was directly indicative of the cleanliness of my brain.

Cooking is a chore? Damn.

Clearly someone has never had to stretch out three boxes of mac and cheese and a pound of beef for a week.

think that holds true for many ppl, ADD or no (but yeah, everyone i know that's ADD is places a mental premium on tidiness)

also: just walked in to a kitchen with a sink full of george foreman grill parts, a pot of water that i think was used to defrost meat yesterday (not me), and a foul smell

can't get rid of this guy soon enough

this is like 70% of the reason i don't cook at home nearly enough

jesus

Laundry is easy, you can set it going and wander off for an hour until it's done, and when you get back you have lots of fluffy warm clean-smelling things. Laundry wins.

(I don't like ironing much but then I almost never do it. If an item of clothing does not look vaguely presentable after a night hanging over the back of something then it is not for me, I guess. Yeah, I do have pretty low standards for "vaguely presentable", too.)

I wish I could like cooking enough to do it properly and not buy ready meals or whatever, but everything takes me way longer than the instructions say, and buying meat or more than a couple of fresh ingredients pretty quickly gets more expensive than a takeaway and doesn't taste as nice. I know that if I could put the time in then I'd get better and quicker at it and I'd have more things in stock so need to buy less per meal, but it's way too frustrating for me to reach that point.

Ironing should be a whole other choice on the quiz.

Laundry is easy, you can set it going and wander off for an hour until it's done, and when you get back you have lots of fluffy warm clean-smelling things. Laundry wins.

Arrgghhh, changing the duvet cover etc people! I hate doing that.

No shit! There should be a mandatory class for that!

I was taught by my mother how to fold a sheet, how to fold a bath towel, all the essentials. Nobody ever told me how to stuff a comforter into a "duvet cover".

http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-put-on-a-duvet-cover

Yeah, I do kind of hate that, so I have mentally filed it under "making the bed" and not "laundry". I've got a single bed in my current place but will soon have a double and double duvet covers are a massive pain, being taller than me in both directions.

But still, clean sheets are more satisfying than any meal I've yet cooked. I know this says more about my cooking than laundry.

^^^I use that method for super kingsize even (although I have to stand on the bed for the shaking down bit). Never looked back.

xp

Love it. Thanks!

Well, I love it except for the web ad that you can't skip or even turn the volume down on.

i cooked my ass

I love cooking.

i voted yardwork. because my yardwork consists of monthly ripping up the strange growths eminating from the cracks in the concrete and throwing them in the wormery.

laundry is annoying because i always find a dropped item on the stairs, after i've switched the washing machine on.

cooking, hate it when i can't be arsed but have to due to starvation possibility.

cleaning, satisfying once done. a close second.

cleaning and yardwork would be so far beyond cooking and laundry, simply because cooking is nothing like a chore and a machine does all of my laundry for me.

monthly ripping up the strange growths eminating from the cracks

In terms of cleaning vs laundry, i would rather do dishes, sweep, vacuum, or organize than do laundry, but i would rather do laundry than wash windows, mop floors, clean out the fridge or scrub the bathroom

dishes should be a separate option.

anyway i voted cooking

i don't like cooking that much but would infinitely rather do it than any kind of cleaning or tidying. laundry oth is not much effort at all, although it's kinda annoying when you're just about to go to bed and remember you've got a washing machine full of wet clothes to hang up (britishes don't do tumble drying).

irishers do. how strange.

Cooking is different than the others because sometimes it's fun and not a chore. It's when you have to cook when you don't feel like it would be fun, or when you don't understand why it's your job when you're just as busy as anyone else, that it is a chore! I can totally see where these housewives are coming from.

Also, making sure you have enough food in the house to make sure other people are fed for the week IS a chore! I hate that I'd put planning and time into shopping so that I can cook nice meals, but my roommates would decide to cook a certain recipe about an hour before they'd like to eat it, and then were shocked, SHOCKED that we don't happen to have every ingredient. Where do they think it comes from, magic? (I also hate when, say, I shopped Monday for the week and planned on cooking something Wednesday, but they used up some key ingredient Tuesday. Although I wonder why it never ever occurred to me to say, "hey, no problem that you used that, but would you mind replacing it tomorrow because i was hoping to cook with it?" instead of making another trip to the store myself.)

And doing the dishes after cooking? Also a chore. I'd love to get away with only doing the cooking part, and leaving shopping and cleaning up after to others, but...it never seems tow ork that way.

obv i don't really live any of them. voted cleaning though: when i finally admit that my mess is out of control and commit myself to it, it can be pretty amazing. like 1-2 hrs of just hardcore CLEARING SHIT OUT. and you get to enjoy the benefits of it for so much longer than the others.

laundry isn't a huge imposition but can be distressing if you forget that your clothes are in the machine and they come out smelling slightly manky. also the "oh man i want to wish this particularly white T-shirt so i can wear it tomorrow but have no other white clothes to go in with it" problem. i also have a v bad habit of hanging clothes on a laundry rack to dry and then leaving them there forever.

yardwork...i have never done this and can be pretty certain that i never will. this doesn't exist to me.

cooking - the WORST. i fucking hate it. i can and have cooked really nice meals but the process just stresses me out immensely - makes me feel so frazzled and harassed. and it just doesn't allow for my usual absent-mindedness - so many times i've wandered out of the kitchen rather than stand there and be bored for 15mins while something cooks, and then ruin has ensued. and unless you're cooking for a dinner party or at least one other person, it's so anticlimactic! even if it tastes A+ you've finished it in 15mins and then you have to wash up.

and as maria says it's never just the cooking, it's the planning and the ingredient-buying beforehand, which stresses me out just as much as the actual kitchen work. plus that feeling of mild resentment when you buy a whole bag of some ingredient you only need a tablespoon of, and you just know that you're never ever going to use the rest of it.

it also makes you feel bad b/c so many people tell you that "should" be enjoying it - for years i felt guilty about not cooking and kept trying to force myself to do it. and then one day i was nearly weeping b/c some recipe was stressing me out so much and then something just clicked - i threw everything out and ordered some takeaway. so cathartic.

*don't really love any of them

friends or family + beer/wine + cooking together + music has made for some of the best times i've ever had. i like cooking alone, too. it makes me feel productive. cooking for others is fun, too, they appreciate it so much!

it can be a chore tho when you're strapped for time and are just hastily pulling things together so you don't have to go out for lunch for the 5th time that week. but w/ a little planning cooking is one of the best activities ever.

cleaning depends on what is being cleaned - i don't mind doing dishes at all. organizing books/records/cds is fun. scrubbing tubs, washing windows sucks, mopping floors sucks completely.

laundry totally depends on how far you have to go to do it, e.g. laundromat, basement of ur apartment, your own room.

imo if you have a washer and dryer in your actual apartment/home and you complain about laundry, stfu. it's the easiest thing in the world if you don't have to leave your home.

fuck yardwork tho, it's the worst

I enjoy vacuum cleaning my ball sack.

the sad thing is, i really love cooking, a lot the time. i think being responsible for cooking for other people (not just doing it when you want to), and trying to make sure there's something decent for everyone to eat every night instead of just taking care of yourself when you feel like it, is what makes it a chore. that's the difference between bachelor and housewife cooking i guess.

and yeah, laundry's nothing if you have a washer and dryer.

Cooking is great, but I hate having to cook when I don't feel like it (which is about 5/7 of every week) (xp - just what Maria said). I love doing laundry but I hate having to schlep everything up and down stairs and to the laundromat (would definitely vote laundry if we had w/d in our apt). I don't have a yard and if I have my way, will never have a yard, because yardwork is just such a ridiculous way to spend my free time (also hate the sun and am allergic to grass and god knows what else).

So cleaning by process of elimination, since I don't mind it, and am a little... intense about cleaning, and get a deep and fundamental satisfaction out of sitting in a clean apartment.

I'm useless inside the house.

Yardwork is the bottom of the pile for me. Though I love having fresh herbs and fruit and vegetables available to be picked right outside the door, I don't like all the maintenance and upkeep and stuff that is so weather dependent. I like doing laundry - there's a washer/dryer in the flat, though I hang everything to dry. I am very excited about the awesome new drying rack I got last week, which is sick. Cleaning is okay, because the results are great. But cooking wins.

Beth, if we lived within range, I'd trade you housework for yard stuff.

yardwork is just such a ridiculous way to spend my free time

i think this is why i hate it - this is what everybody did in my neighborhood growing up, every weekend. take care of your lawn, all the time. watering flowers, mulching, fertilizing, mowing grass, raking leaves, pulling weeds, ugh.

part of me wants to have like 4 or 5 acres of land on a nice piece of property but another part has no desire to ever have any type of lawn

if you could afford 4 or 5 acres presumably you could afford a groundsman + whole host of underlings.

haha

i guess i'd like that 5 acres rugged tho. it doesn't need to manicured. this is ideally in the country somewhere. also this will likely never happen

yardwork is just such a ridiculous way to spend my free time

Haha, this is what I probably spend about 30% of my time doing. Just toiling outside, listening to music, thinkin' 'bout things.

I wish that I hadn't sounded so judgey when I wrote that. I don't think it is a ridiculous way for everybody to spend their free time, just me and my free time.

Voted cleaning. I usually do it to procrastinate - and after I'm done, it's like I have a new lease on life; everything's in its right place and I have nothing to distract me from whatever important task it is that I have put off.

Laundry is pretty fun - having had to handwash clothes occasionally in the past makes me that much more appreciative of how magical and black-boxish laundry machines are. You put your clothes in, hit the button, and half an hour later it's done. Needs a tumble dryer though; I hate hanging clothes because of how stiff they end up; and sucks when you live in humid conditions and everything takes a week to dry and smells moldy and mildewy afterwards. Sorting and folding and putting clothes back into their proper places is a drag though.

I love cooking for other people but hate cooking for myself, for all the reasons mentioned upthread. Whatever I make ends up being disappointing in comparison to time/effort/money put into it. Also cooking by default entails dish washing which is the worst form of cleaning, because you know you're just going to get them dirty again in a day. I happen to like grocery shopping, but not for foods with a short shelf-life; I hate the idea of being beholden to the lives of fruits and vegetables.

The enjoyment of yardwork is largely dependent on the weather and the possession of an ipod.

Ironing should be a whole other choice on the quiz.

― all art is propaganda (kenan), Friday, June 19, 2009 4:24 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

Would have voted for this. The best of all chores.

ooking is the best, and not at all a chore

yardwork is fun when the whether's nice

cleaning is the hardest to get started, but def the most satisfying to have completed, and generally improves my mental health the most

laundry is boring and stupid

― i want to marry a pizza (gbx), Thursday, June 18, 2009 10:01 PM (10 hours ago) Bookmark

cooking is the only one of these i ever do just for fun -- some good music, an open bottle of wine, an hour in the kitchen = a fine use of time.

of the actual chores here, i really don't mind doing laundry, and yard work or mowing can be fine if the weather's nice. (a theoretical proposition for me, since i haven't had a yard in 7 years.) cleaning is at the bottom of the list.

I wish that I hadn't sounded so judgey when I wrote that.

Oh no, not at all! Each to their own and all that. I like the physical work, the beauty of the plants, watching the wildlife, thinking about the science and ecology of what I'm doing, nurturing things along, growing food for my family, being outside, talking to the neighbours, mucking around with my kids and teaching them about stuff... just happens to be a really good fit for me as it brings together lots of things I'm interested in.

Cooking is a pleasure, and so is yardwork except during the hottest part of the year. Even then, it's pleasant to get out there early and do what needs to be done before the sun is too high. I went out and tied up the tomatoes this morning around 7 and was finished before I broke a sweat. Laundry's not too onerous...the rest of the housework, vacuuming and dusting and sweeping, is the only thing I really hate.

watching the wildlife, thinking about the science and ecology of what I'm doing

"Mike, do you think ants go to disco's?"

Cooking for someone is like making a 45-minute mixtape and then sitting your victim at a table and making them listen to it while you watch them.

I mean, I've heard some pretty good mixtapes in my time, but this whole little song-and-dance routine in the kitchen when it's just FOOD being made gets a bit ridiculous.

you are the worst kind of person

its not "just food"

tho wait what song and dance routine

i dont ever dance in the kitchen

you are the worst kind of person

Cooking is the only one that isn't a chore.

max otm

I dunno... max is onto something. My point was never that cooking is dull or should have to be bad. Just that if you do it every. single. day. eventually you'll probably come around to a recipe that involves Campbell's cream of mushroom soup. Cooking is great stuff, but I could never handle it as a mandatory daily duty. Because yeah, sometimes it IS "just food."

ur loss

food is never "just food" but cooking is always "just cooking"

i would be happy to welcome all of you people who love cooking to cook for me ANY time

I actually like washing dishes

just realized that fact this year it hit me pretty hard

also, the phrase 'music to wash dishes to' as a kind of minor insult? not for me - i find that i'm able to more actively listen to music while i'm doing something physical. i prob enjoy listening to music most when i'm cooking/cleaning/washing dishes

cooking for other people is much more of a pleasure than a chore- cooing for one is usually a bit of a pain in the ass though.

if you could afford 4 or 5 acres presumably you could afford a groundsman + whole host of underlings.

― man saves ducklings from (ledge), Friday, 19 June 2009 14:34 (2 hours ago)

depends where you live! my parents have about 4-5 acres. you pretty much can't buy anything in our area for more than $200,000, a lot of places are well below 100.

and also, i agree with kenan on the cream of mushroom soup question - after a few months of cooking for people several nights a week, it's easy to fall into a rut of only making something interesting once or twice a week and eating pasta with vegetables or beans and rice the rest of the time.

neither of which are mushroom soup, but they may be our generation's equivalent!

cooing for one is usually a bit of a pain in the ass though.

Nah, I like it - you can experiment.

haha, i have no qualms about feeding others my experiments. (but some successful experments, such as ramen with yogurt and curry powder mixed in, can never be served to others. not that that even counts as cooking.)

Actually having said that I live with my brother (who doesn't really cook), and he can like or fucking lump my experiments.

I think I like cooking because you have to do it every single day - you might as well make it interesting, right? At least this is how I got into it. I've been doing it long enough and have enough practice and interest that I have a good repertoire of stuff I can whip out without recipes or much planning and keep it all interesting. I've never thought about being a housekeeper or landscaper but I've sure as hell thought about wanting to cook for a living.

Also, as someone who has had laundry facilities in their various abodes for over 8 years now, I honestly would rather go to a laundromat - you can do it all in like an hour instead of having to go to the basement and back every hour all afternoon, then forgetting to switch loads and having to stay up while it dries or something.

Ironing is such a horrible chore that I never buy anything that needs ironing.

I think I like cooking because you have to do it every single day - you might as well make it interesting, right

I'm glad I don't share a toilet with you.

I'm so beyond toilets by now, except for the occaisional upper tanker.

Lamp ur username should be ╠╦═╩╤╬╦╩══╦╦╬═╩╣ PIPE WORLD LVL 420 just thnikin out loud

lol probably.

the other day my friend was complaining about having to go to ikea w/o having smoked 1st and ppl were like O_O really and then she said she cant do laundry w/o smoking either. so i guess a +1 in laundry's favor since its the only choice thats really compatible.

420 GET LOST IN IKEA EVERY DAY

pipe world 69 is good too

420 REPEATEDLY ASK IKEA EMPLOYEE IF VARIOUS ITEMS "REQUIRE SOME ASSEMBLY"

sometimes i try to smoke & clean the house and i never really works out for me

yah ive tried to smoke and do all of these:

cooking - lol i already find it tedious once tried makin cookies just ended up eating the batter
cleaning - need lazer like focus otherwise it ends up half-assed doesnt work at all
laundry - enh its alright but tbh i send my laundry out
yard/outside work - works pretty well except for like trimming the edge of the grass

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I didnt mention yardwork before. Its not something I'm great at, having mostly lived in apartments, but I do enjoy growing vegetales and herbs. Its staisfying at a fundamental level. But also deeply frustrating when things go wrong: bugs or possums eatin' my tomaters, things dying, endless leaves to rake up, etc. Thankfully I havent a lawn. I wouldnt have a clue how to use a mower /girly.

Wow sorry for the dyslexic typing, I'm sitting awkwardly and its someone elses computer.

for everyone who LIKES doing dishes: come do mine? i absolutely hate doing dishes; i would cook a lot more if i didn't.

yardwork: if i ever own a big piece of property, i intend to xeriscape as much of the landscaping as i can. that will cut down on the time/work obligation (as well as save lots of water).

How do we not have a thread about ironing!? I really need to vent, it's an impossible and frustrating business!

Doing a shirt was just about OK, in my ham-fisted way. The wee creases have gone for the most part, if you kind of squint a wee bit. Trying to do suit trousers and jacket though... ay ay ay...

Thankfully I'm wearing it after dark and it's a black suit & shirt, so I should hopefully get away with it.

I know I should have got them dry-cleaned and ironed professionally really, but time and financial means aren't on my side.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/818963/IMG_0030.JPG

just saying

ironing is awesome fuiud

I feel like I am effecting ~change~ in my life when I iron

I'm discovering that loads of my friends have cleaning ladies.

Not getting the apple pie picture, sorry. Unless of course you're simply showing us that you made an awesome looking pie, in which case, bravo.

just sayin that an ironed shirt doesn't smell like that, i don't care what detergent you're using.

cooking is the worse imo - 30 min-2 hours of prep work for 5 min of pleasure

ironing? 20 mins of frustration for 10 secs of a shirt looking ironed, then you put it on.

yeah but that's awesome

Clean washing doesn't smell like fresh apple pie, true enough.

Makes me think though of the Marmite adverts in the UK at the moment, which use the ridiculousness of the idea of a Marmite scented washing detergent to advertise their new cereal type bar.

I have a clothes steamer which is easier to use than an iron. It doesn't do really crisp creases, but most of our clothes that require such things go to the dry cleaners anyway. It's also good for freshening clothes that you wear more than once in between launderings. Got it really cheap from Craig's List, too.

http://rowentagarmentsteamer.com/images/Rowenta%208100%20Garment%20Steamer.jpg

Also it looks like a little robot.

yeah clothes steamers are what I see department store folks using to keep the merchandise fresh, but they
seem like such a big investment

Don't iron a suit, steam a suit. Get an old dish towel, wet it, wring it most of the way out, and put it between your iron and the clothing. Lift the iron vertically and press where you want to iron, don't push it around horizontally or you'll get tectonic plates of wrinkles.

I have the steamer in that picture and I got it used on Craig's List for $60USD, I think? That is a significant savings over the suggested retail price. It also takes up a lot less space in our wee apartment and we can keep it set up all the time, rather than having to slide the ironing board, Jenga-like, out of the one place that it fits in the closet, ironing, and then carefully replacing it so as to avoid bringing suitcases and boxes of wrapping paper from tumbling down on our heads. We are much less wrinkly than we used to be as a result.

If I had a steamer like that, I would not have scorched my skirt yesterday by holding it over a pot of boiling water (and letting one corner fall too close to the burner).

i don't own an iron or ironing board....this should probably change? or i should get a steamer

my usual thing if i need emergency wrinkle removal is to hang up a shirt in the bathroom when i shower

That steamer looks awesome! And I like the idea of it sitting next to a roomba.

When we were in a house with an actual laundry area with plenty of room, I didn't mind ironing - it's meditative and I'd get through a couple dozen shirts and all the table napkins in a few hours on a Saturday. But we haven't had the room for the past 4 years, and once I started hanging everything to dry, the shirts rarely look that bad. There are a few linen things that I have to be vigilant about shaping while damp.

Then I realize, I'm fine living with racks of damp clothing around, but not with having the ironing board set up full time.

Laurel, that is a serious commitment to wrinkle free living there.

laundry is the worst. maybe bc i spend i big chunk of my work week essentially doing laundry: i gotta put loads through about 5 wash cycles each, adding shit and setting timers; then it has to be tumble dried and then it's all got have price tags/size stickers/security tags added and then it has to be folded and inventoried.

laundromat is only about 100 steps from our apt but goddamn i hate doing it. we probably only go once every 3 weeks, and even then we have to psyche ourselves up for it.

(i'm a garment dyer, i forgot to add)

Worst thing about having no car is getting laundry done, a real PITA hauling that stuff o'er my shoulder like a Johnny Appleseed.

a real PITA hauling that stuff o'er my shoulder like a Johnny Appleseed.

^^ My life story. It helps if you can balance a bag on each shoulder, carried log-style.

Ya'll need one of those wheeled grocery carts.

I have one, but the basket isn't big enough for two bags -- annoyingly, it's big enough for about one and a HALF normal laundry bags, but there's no way to get two bags in except to balance one cross-wise on top, which always topples off as soon as you hit a microscopic irregularity in the sidewalk. Which is every 1.4 feet.

i fucking hate ironing. all other household tasks are ok because they actually have a point but i can't understand the point of ironing

it helps u look like a grown up

a pressed dress shirt is just a different thing from a wrinkled one

i understand that but why are humans dumb enough to comply with such a system

dry cleaning 1-2 dollars a shirt

altho having this done for you, at a laundry, perhaps by chinese, is better than having to do it yourself in your underwear and im late for work again

i haven't ironed a shirt in 7 years, my life has changed

i refuse to have someone do this for me

sigh

i feel bad for quincie

i have to iron a shirt tonight for a dinner. i should just wear a turtleneck. made of wrinkles

feel bad for quincie

quincie doesn't do my laundry or shirts

i fucking hate ironing. all other household tasks are ok because they actually have a point but i can't understand the point of ironing

vs

i refuse to have someone do this for me

ok good ; ) xpost

dry cleaning is paying someone to iron 4 U

oh shit, you thought i meant that she did my laundry, no i just meant i'd been using a dry cleaner for 7 years

mr que wears a hair shirt for the last seven years. under a linen suit its supposed to looked "lived in"

i mean it's just a lame thing to pay for if i can do it myself, but i'm still gonna complain about it bc i don't believe in it but still have to do it. that's all.

oh i can't dry clean myself yeah

harbl do you press your own suits? i do my own dress shirts bcuz im poor but i draw the line at suits

Mmm I love an ironed and spray-starched shirt in the summer.

i gotta admit i feel pretty superior to people who drop off their laundry while i'm in the laundromat
no i get them dry cleaned but just try not to do it that much (i don't have to wear real suits most of the time). i will iron them a little if they get wrinkled but not the entire thing.

i mean i go to court but it's not a big deal usually so i can just throw on a jacket and wear pants i can wash myself

i like doing laundry

harbl do you wash yr own court wig

heh

i just wear those sick looken black robes u never even to wash em

i don't mind doing laundry and the result is very satisfying

i love to iron. i find it relaxing for some reason.

shit is always falling off the ironing board, i iron wrinkles into my clothes, it doesn't work, etc.

That just means you're bad at it. Luckily there's an enormous sector of society devoted to doing things the rest of us don't want to. I just used some of them there immygrants to carry all my furniture out and drive it somewhere else.

uh

Sorry, was that more offensive than normal for ILX? I can't tell.

no its fine

i like to do everything myself

ur punk

xp I mostly do too and it has been the topic of enormous flame-wars on ILX with certain people who don't understand why useful skills are valuable when you can always hire someone to do them for you. However after shuffling around the NY/NJ area for the last 12 years, I am totally over schlepping my own boxes from one apartment to another.

Anyway the entire service industry is in this category as well: restaurants, waitstaff in particular.

diy ironing

Honestly if you know how to iron it's not bad at all if you only have to do one or two things. I feel for people with a pile of like 15 shirts, but I don't know anyone who does that anymore (besides my mom and I think even she has switched to dropping them off).

Ironing is a skill I am more accomplished at than my dry cleaner but often prefer to give to her. It does tend to cut into valuable drinking time.

I don't mind ironing things that can be laid flat, but for, like, vintagey dresses with bust darts or tailoring that would make me get out a pressing cloth and a tailor's ham, I prefer to hand-wash and take to the dry cleaner for pressing/steaming only.

I made a cotton skirt once that has like 20 box pleats all the way around. I have that shit pressed off the premises.

The steamer is GREAT for that kind of stuff. I have a lot of dresses that fall into that category (actually, all of my dresses that require ironing fall into that category) and the steamer is just the ticket.

Jeff takes his shirts to the dry cleaners for laundering. That was a precondition of our cohabitation, actually.

I love outsourcing chores. We gave a cleaning lady. Use wash and fold service at the laundromat. If we could afford a cook I'd pay for that too.

Um, we use the wash and fold once every couple of months. I just want credit where credit is due!

i have been sorely tempted to use the wash n fold. except we are cheapskates. plus i'm a prude about strangers handling my underwear.

i would seriously hire a cleaner once a month or so if we had a little extra cash - just to do the 'big' stuff like mopping floors and scrubbing out the shower and cleaning the oven.

Laundry is my chore and that is generally okay, but sometimes we have stuff to do on weekends and then we have to chose between shelling out $$ for wash and fold or having a free afternoon, and pretty much "free afternoon" wins every time.

One day I will live the dream of having a w/d in my actual apartment and this will no longer be an issue.

doing laundry is the actual worst

why u hate laundry?

unless the machine's in your apartment, fuck that shit

laundry is awesome! it's like getting new cool clothes.

i feel v lucky to have free on-site laundry at my apt, if i had to go to a coin-op laundromat i would cry

we have a coin-op machines in our basement which is usually freezing and smells like sewage, so I have come to associate doing laundry with having to go into a cold stinky place.

we haven't done any in like three weeks and I had l do sheets and towels as well and then I found a huge dead fly in the washing machine and the mat is so far from my house and the dryers take forever and then the indignity of transferring everything and half my bfs clothes have to be hang dry cry cry cry

go somewhere with faster dryers!

I'm with Lamp, laundry blows

there was a point in my life where I had enough clean underwear, socks, jeans and tshirts to get through at least a month without doing laundry. my poor tiny brain didn't understand that doing that meant giant piles of laundry, all I knew was yay I don't have to do laundry forever.

Mr veg does all our laundry. if it were up to me we'd wear those tissue-paper onesies they wear in cheese factories that you throw away.

hate folding laundry, other than that i don't mind. give me washing dishes and cleaning the kitchen any day.

the only part of laundry I do is the folding.