My airing cupboard is incredibly tidy and sorted, look!
It’s a particularly daft design – all those pipes on the left of the tank mean it is impossible to store anything neatly in the bottom half of the cupboard.
I forgot to take a ‘before’ photo – when there were rolled up duvet covers pushed behind the pipes into the space.
But now all the bedlinen is sorted into neat sets [covers, pillowcases, sheets] and tied with ribbon. [I just happened to have a reel of 50 yards of pink corset ribbon, which came from a long defunct Leicester corset factory. Don’t ask why or how!]There’s a tidy tablecloth stack too.
Each bundle is neatly labelled ‘king’, ‘double’ or ‘single’
They are wonderfully flat and beautifully stacked in tidy piles.
Martha Stewart, eat your heart out!
oh wow im having serious airing cupboard envy, that is such a good idea x
ReplyDeleteFrench village life.
ReplyDeleteI can only comment this way at the moment.
Well done Ang, your cupboard looks fit for any magazine now!
Spooky, I've just blitzed my airing cupboard today. And it has a very similer set up to yours.
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Oh, my goodness, you've tied your sheets with ribbon! You have out Martha'd Martha!
ReplyDeleteI've never heard the phrase "airing cupboard" before. I like it.
xofrances
What's an airing cupboard?
ReplyDeleteWhat a great idea to tie them in bundles! I'm always looking around for a lost pillowcase.
ReplyDeleteVery nice. :-)
An airing cupboard is a large cupboard, containing a water heater; either an immersion heater for hot running water or a central heating boiler. Shelves, usually slatted to allow for circulation of heat, are positioned above or around the heater to provide storage for clothing, bedlinen and towelling. Air can circulate around the stored fabrics to prevent damp forming. Often people who have dried laundry outside on a washing line will put it in the airing cupboard to dry completely before storing it in wardrobes or drawers.
ReplyDeleteDo you have anything like this in the US? If so, what do you call it?
Generally, we have hot water heaters (insulated tanks, ~30-50 gallons), either electric or gas flame, usually in separate closets just large enough to hold the tank. In older houses the heaters are sometimes in a bathroom, corner of the kitchen, or in the laundry room. In our house there is a nice closet (more like a cabinet actually) accessed from the hall, right behind the bathroom sink and not too far from the kitchen. In some areas people cover them with insulation jackets to make them even more efficient. No shelving. If it's gas, you have vents to deal with. Good place to put mouse poison! If it's electric, there is no need for ventilation. Just shut the door and forget it. If we have very hard water, though, it's a good idea to drain the tank completely (run a garden hose outside) once a year to pull out minerals and start over. Here is a link that might give you an idea:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sears.com/appliances-water-heaters/c-1020026
Some are now beginning to install newer, smaller systems that heat water on demand and jettison the big tanks altogether, but these systems are not completely safe yet. There have been flash fires.
I'll try to leave you pictures of ours after lunch! ~Liz
Your airing cupboard design reminds me of ours when we lived in Gloucester - it always seemed such a shame that waste of space next to the tank. Then we had to have a new central heating boiler and chose a combi-boiler making our hot water tank redundant. Our clever plumber suggested replacing it with a radiator inside the airing cupboard which gave me the combination of a warm place to air things along with lots more linen storage - I really miss it now down here in Taunton
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