My ironing board cover was part of a larger laundry revamp. Progress stalled after that. A lot happens here behind the scenes and home-making generally takes a back-seat when we deal with other stuff.
This cooler part of the year is good for more physical projects though and a recent cancelled property inspection (along with a bout of vertigo) highlighted the need for much better organisation.
As there had been no dedicated clothes sorting area previously, clean washing was brought upstairs and often left in baskets inside the back door or on the table - which caused chaos.
Moving to Queensland prompted a wardrobe overhaul for me and I now wear dresses much of the year. I like them to be ironed and there was no actual ironing area, so an ironing board was often set up in the air-conditioned lounge room, using a bookcase for hanging the pressed clothes.
I watched quite a lot of YouTube for laundry inspiration but most tutorials were aimed at home owner renovators rather than tenants. I didn't want to paint walls and build cupboards. I just wanted to create a simple, cheap, pleasant work area - that could be dismantled and taken with us at some later stage.
After much pondering I purchased a $49.00 portable wardrobe from Kmart. Once it was up, I could measure the shelf compartments as their size wasn't noted on the box. BigW had white baskets that fit well. I bought four baskets and two large grey tubs - another $47.00. Everyone has a basket and clean clothes are sorted accordingly. As the youngest, Vaughan's is on the bottom but I may change than as it's quite low and bending can be an issue for me.
We bought a second-hand dryer very recently. It won't receive a lot of use but is a handy thing to have. It's sitting on an old coffee table adjacent the washing machine. I've placed one of our folding camp tables over the coffee table, to fold clothes on. The ironing board is set up in the same area, so clothes can be ironed and hung directly on the racks.
The window had an ancient, too-long venetian blind covering. It fell down every time I tried to adjust it, so has now been stored out of the way. Nick put up a curtain rod this afternoon (which was part of a lot of block-out curtains I purchased soon after moving in). I'd been given a set of long maroon curtains and we hung two of those behind the wardrobe, though I expect they'll stay open most of the time.
You can see some of the floor in the photos. The tiles are cracked, broken and there are bare patches. I'd like to put down a mat but in heavy rain periods, some of the downstairs area suffers flooding. We've had ankle deep water in a former bathroom and less deep but still annoying issues in other places - hence our hesitation to use anything that could be damaged.
I did some ironing this afternoon and folded a few clothes also. I'm liking the ease of having everything in the one place. Nick and I were culling downstairs the other night, so set up a bluetooth speaker and listened to Spotify while working - and that could be an option for longer ironing sessions, too.
It's early days yet but I can see an improvement upstairs and feel we've done great work for less than $100.00 (or just over $105.00 if we count the $10.00 cupboard). Three cheers for us!
