Huge PVC Laundry Sorter

Our cat was peeing on our laundry (no, I'm not kidding) so my wife requested a laundry sorter. Since I have three small children (and hope to have more) I was compelled to grant the request. (Plus I don't really enjoy the smell of cat pee.. especially on my clothing). Anyhow, this is 5 bin PVC Laundry Sorter that is built with PVC pipe, fittings, snap clamps, a piece of fabric, some laundry bags, and of course a few safety pins.

Note: I am a partner in a business that distributes these PVC fittings (just so no one is surprised by that).

Here's a video where my family talks about that cat.. it's funny:

Step 1 Come up with a plan

This isn't complicated, but here's my basic plan. I decided to put a lid on it (to keep the cat away). The lid certainly isn't required. But it is kind of cool to use the these slip on PVC tees to create things that you might not otherwise be able to do with PVC.

Comments

[paprikitty]

Definitely keeping this in mind when I get a house of my own! The laundry situation at home has always been horrid and the men of the house all have pink underwear because they don't seem to get the concept of whites and colors. Silly boys~

[kelhami]

About how much did all of the pvc supplies (bars, corners, snaps) cost? And is there any way to make the front slant down (i.e. front bars lower than back bars)... so that it's easier to throw stuff in (without lid)? I dont know if you can do slanted bars with pvc connections.

Thanks!
I have a family of 8 and we have LOADS of laundry (no pun intended) I actually want big square spaces in the basement to just throw diff colors, rather than the nice neat (and kinda small) bags. IDEAS?

[Weissensteinburg]

Two things...what is it rsorted by? |Socks/Underwear| |Pants| |Shirts| etc... or by family member? Also, I think it might look a bit better if you use some of that extra fabric around the whole thing, so that you don't see each bag.

[simplifiedbuilding]

Good Question. It's sorted by Kid Whites, Kid Colors, Adult Whites, Adult Colors, and Sheets/Towels. We might change the system later. One of the other things about the design is the it is fairly modular, so we could add or, or break it apart into smaller units. I agree about the fabric making it nicer. You could probably do it with some cool patterns and designs too.

[Weissensteinburg]

If you reall felt like going all out, and youre decent on a sewing machine, you could quilt together white fabrics and colored fabrics...and then sew on to each panel either "Kids" or "Adults"

[tarala]

good idea with color coding... even use colored fabrics to sew the liners up, black for blacks, colored for colored and white for whites (maybe put a red applique on the black because reds best washed with black). 

[h3idi]

Nice, I never considered washing reds with blacks. I always do a separate reds load, but i usually have enough (red yellow orange and sometimes purple.) but it makes sense!!

[tazassape]

Thinking of using pvc to make a small gate. What did you use for the hinges? Some sort of T?

[simplifiedbuilding]

Yeah I used a Slip T, pictured here: http://www.simplifiedbuilding.com/store/pvc/pvc-fittings/pvc10-slip-tee.html

[tazassape]

Thanks, that's what I thought but wanted to be sure.

[MacOgma]

If your cats are peeing in the laundry, that is a sign of a bladder infection! I've had 2 cats in the past that did that and it was the case both times. Maybe you should have them checked, they can die if it gets too bad.

[mikesty]

my kitty pees on my laundry too!

[tarala]

think they do it because there is no splashback, soaks straight in, from a cats point of view the ideal place to pee. if cats made an instructable for ideal litter it would probably be a pile of clothing that gets removed every day and replaced with a fresh dry pile! 

[RedRyder]

 A great Instructable! You obviously have access to "structural PVC" parts with your business... but any suggestions as to where we outsiders could find such things? Can't say I've ever seen them in my local big-brand hardware store.

As for the family size... I have five kids, and we'd have more if we could. The world needs more future Instructablers. My son loves this site and wants to try virtually everything. To Gladys45 and FullOfBS, get your facts right. Go do a little research on the population "growth" problem before you moralize and make inane comparisons with other countries. DoomGoat is right... What we need is less moralizing and more Instructing. Go write an Instructable.  I look forward to reading it.

[gladys45]

" Of", not "off"....sorry grammar and spelling nazi's, and sorry Godwin's Law

[kudoskun]

have you thought about peeing on the cat to teach it a lesson?

[sandiemom]

Just about peeing MY pants with laughter here! 4 cats, 3 boys, 2 fathers and one husband...got lots of 'weaponry' to retaliate here! LOL!

[Very Keri]

I BOUGHT two of these a few years ago. The ones I have are kind of rickety and they don't have a lid, but they do have wheels, which are a bonus. We don't have a laundry room and we only have one small bathroom, so we keep them in the bedroom closet. They're great for keeping piles of clothes out of sight and I always know when one bag is 3/5 full, it's time to do some laundry. I wish I had thought of making my own!

[SpinWard]

This idea has saved my life. Being a working mom with a husband and 3 yearold, you almost HAVE to do this to survive! I used to have a cat and had the same problem. What is it with cats and wanting/needing to pee in clothes. And you CANNOT get that smell out of a towel!!

[FreshPineSent]

Thats why I have dogs...

[the_master]

Very awesome, i think i'll build one for just myself. One that isn't as big. One questions, where did you get the laundry bags?

[simplifiedbuilding]

We got the laundry bags at wally world (walmart) excepts for one that we already had. You could probably find them at just about any store like that.

[the_master]

Thats what i thought you would say. Walmart has everything.

[offramp]

Some of you might want to figure out why your cats are peeing in your laundry. Behavior like this usually indicates they're not happy with something; wouldn't hurt to look around and try to figure out what that might be.

[StevenHamilton99]

Thats awesome. I have one idea that might make it look more "complete." Add either a piece of cloth around the whole thing to make it look more clean or put in a piece of wood or some kind of front and sides. Thats the only thing I would change in this design. -Steven

[simplifiedbuilding]

Yeah, that could be done fairly easily. I think I was aiming for function for the most part. Trying to keep the cost down as much as I could since it was going in my (already messy) basement. I guess one of the nice things of doing it this way is that I could always "mod" it later. Thanks for the thought!

[chaz54476]

I like that: I have three children this would work great for: No kitty problem, just messy kids TY great idea