Laundry at The Smith Hotel and a curtain rod

Laundry and kids.....it all started back my freshman year in college....

I had guy friends that were sent to college with a list of instructions on how to do their own laundry.

I vowed to myself that if and when I ever had children, they would be able to do their own laundry before they left home.......Fast forward 20 years (ouch that hurts thinking about how long ago I went off to college).

Drama queen will be 10 next week.  She isn't quite tall enough to get the soap down and turn on the machine.  She does bring her laundry basket to the laundry room, sort her lights and darks, load the washer.  She also puts away her own clothes (most of them don't ever seem to make it quite where they really need to go).  This is the sorting process to put her clothes away.  For some reason it's in the hallway today.  Oh, I know why-her bedroom is too messy for her "sorting system" to happen in her room.

Boy Wonder is still at school but his basket of clothes is waiting by his door to be put away.  He even takes the incentive when he starts to run out of clothes to do his own laundry without being told (can I hear an Amen).  He does all of the laundry process himself.  Boy Wonder is 12 years old and has been doing his laundry all by himself for about a year.  Before that Mr. Smith or I would help with the process like we do with Drama Queen.  

Is it perfect? 

Nope.

Concerning the kid's hallway.....

I had to come up with something besides the front of the fridge to put all their school papers on display.  Mr. Smith installed an IKEA wire curtain rod and we use the clips to hold the papers.

The curtain wire rod thingy runs the length of the hallway. The middle connector marks the halfway point for each kid's side to hang their papers. With 2 kids everything has to be divided, of course.