Blue Mondays

When you live in a big apartment building in a big city -- whether it's Boston, New York, or Göteborg -- a common-space laundry room is the norm.  Sometimes, like in our apartment in Boston, the machines are just like a laundromat.  You show up with your dirty undies, hope there's a free machine, and you push in your quarters.

Here in Sweden, it's a bit different.  The machines are free (or rather, bundled up in your rent), and you reserve your time on a 'bokningstavla' (booking board).  Most buildings have two or three laundry rooms that each have a couple washers and a couple dryers.  You get this laundry room to yourself for a couple hours, and you're able to lock up the space so that you can go on about your merry way.

But the fantastic thing about these laundry rooms is the folding space!!  O.M.G. -- domestic goddess time! -- I hope that I will always live someplace that has available a big looong waist-high counter for folding laundry.  It makes the dreaded folding a billion-trillion times easier.  And you don't end up with wrinkly, cat-hair-covered clean clothes piled in the chair in the corner of the room.  ;-P

Now, yes, the trudging up and down the elevators/hallways is a complete pain-in-the-arse.  Chris and I agree that once we have kids and their mountains of dirties, there will be no more common-space laundry -- but I'm crossing all my fingers and toes that there will be that big long folding counter!