Setting Up a Laundry System for Curtains

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Day 19 of #Write28 Days Challenge

A system for laundering the curtains in the home? Do we really need to set up a laundry system for curtains? Well, if you do not want to forget about them, then yes you do.

When I had a very capable part-timer helper, she would be the one reminding me that the curtains are due for washing. Imagine that! If you have dust allergies, you would need to wash your curtains more often than those who do not battle it.

Ideally, I would like to wash our curtains every 3 months. But….practicality rules in our home. Besides, we have five sets of curtains in our home to wash.

Curtain Choice Then and Now

In our very first home, each set of curtains had a lining while the main curtain had a blackout lining. Sure, our home looked pretty (we did not yet have children) when we drew back the main curtains and left the lining in place. Also, the blackout curtains were very helpful in blocking out the light and the heat from the direct afternoon sun.

But taking them down to wash was a pain-in-the-you-know-where. The lining added to the laundry load and the blackout curtains were so very heavy, even when dry. They were also a pain to hang out to dry and they couldn’t even go into a dryer if we had one. And because they were bulky (one set was also floor-length!), they had to be washed one by one. And there were only three sets of curtains.

The correct way to launder blackout curtains is to send them for dry cleaning. But dry cleaning is not only expensive, it also involves the curtains being chemically treated which means we would all be breathing in the chemicals for months on end.

When we moved to our current place which also faced the afternoon sun albeit, at a more diagonal angle, we did away with lining and blackout curtains. We just chose a darker coloured fabric. And all the curtains hung just below the windows. No more floor-length curtains, thankyouverymuch!

Why Not Blinds?

Why did we not choose to install blinds although they are less of a dust magnet and are definitely easier to clean than curtains? Well, the width of our windows was a problem.

The standard width that blinds came in did not fit our windows. This meant that we would have to install two sets of blinds, placed side-by-side which meant that there would be a gap between the two sets of blinds, letting in light.

So that was a no go. We wanted our rooms to be as dark as possible for nighttime sleep. And so, we ended up with curtains.

We also chose fabrics that could be washed in the washing machine since I wasn’t about to send them for dry cleaning.

A Laundry System for Curtains

As with all our systems, our laundry system for curtains is very simple. Once a year at the very minimum, I will strip the curtains, remove the hooks and wash them at 60 degrees in our washing machine. They are then sun and air-dried, then hung up again. I do not iron them. If you shake them out hard enough the moment they are done in the washing machine, most of the creases straighten themselves out, the rest will eventually also get straightened out.

I will also take the opportunity to dust the curtain tracks. And that’s it.

I aim to wash our curtains twice a year (June and December) but I have only washed them once in 2019. Oops!

Remember, if you do not have curtains but have installed blinds in the house, you will still need to clean them. So don’t forget about them as you go about setting up systems for the home.

Tomorrow, we will talk about the other homemaking systems like dusting, vacuuming and mopping. See you!

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