AIRING CUPBOARD how do you organise

Queenie

Most of the bottom area of mine houses the emersion heater but I have enough room to the left of it to have a hanging "airing" rail - basically a plastic radiator airer that I have turned upside down and bent the prongs so it hangs from the slatted shelf above. This is used to air off uniforms. Below that, I have a small clothes horse where I can air off undies. The slatted shelves above are used for airing clothes/woolens that need to be dried laying flat.

Bedding is stored within their respective pillow cases.
e.g. One of my son's has a football quilt set, so a single bottom sheet and the duvet cover are folded and placed inside the matching pillow case.
Likewise with all the other bedding. Double sheet + 2nd pillowcase + bottom sheet all folded and placed inside the matching double duvet.

I put aside a lot of bedding/linen/towels because over time they seem to multiply without warning. So, I assessed how much we *really* needed per bed: 1 for use, 1 for wash, 1 for spare/emergencies.

"Seasonal" linens are stored away with seasonal decorations: e.g. Christmas Linens are stored away with the christmas decs etc.

As Sarahsaver rightly says, storing linens in the airing cupboard can discolour them over time and it's not the idea place to keep them if they are going to be stored for any length of time.

HOLsale

kittie wrote:

I have just pulled everything out of my airing cupboard and I have an enormous heap on the lounge floor. I don`t have a tank in there and I have two slatted shelves and a half-depth slatted shelf. I don`t know where to start. It is an excellent storage facility but has turned into a glory hole. Arghhh!! How do you organise yours?

ours does have a tank in it as i don't think our landlords would take kindly to us changing the plumbing :rotfl:

however we have hung cup hooks off the wooden frame that the water thingy (cistern?) sits on above the tank. we hang bags for recycling paper etc from those. we have a small IVAR unit from ikea that has some of the orange hanging baskets that slip over a shelf (hangs between shelves) in the baskets we put bottles to be recycled or returned for deposit.

we have 4 tubs on the shelves for various recycling items and brushes etc slip between the tubs as they are slanted and only touch at the top.

we put the hoover in front of that as you can just reach around it to put your recycling in if you need it. we have a large cup hook just inside the door frame that holds the handles of the mop and broom in place

on the inside of the door we have the fire blanket and two of those blue plastic things from ikea that you put your empty bags into

when we can afford it we will get a full book case which will be 7feet tall vs 2 feet, we'll be able to have 6-7 shelves and will be able to store all the stuff i mentioned plus our kitchen towels, the junk on top of the fridge (cleaning stuff) and extra storage

our airing cupboard doesn't get that warm so unfortunately we can't dry clothes in it :-(

nearlyrich

Spendless wrote:

Not used elastic bands on mine. They just remain rolled.

Another tip I've read but not put into practise:o is to put all the matching stuff inside the quilt cover, eg the pillowcases,valance etc, so when you are changing the bedding you know its all together inside one duvet cover.

I do both of these and it works... another tip is to really brutally look at what you are storing and see if you need it, we put two thirds of our towels in the loft for six months and we never ran out so I gave them to the charity shop.

I have a purpose built cupboard in the family bathroom, its floor to ceiling and about a wide as a double wardrobe, three slatted shelves for bedding, towels etc. The top bit is a pull up compartment for spare/ out of season duvets, sleeping bags and pillows. on the floor I have a storage box for the stock of toothpaste, shampoo etc, I can never resist a BOGOF on things we will use eventually. I also have loo rolls etc in there.


The best tip though is to keep the kids out LOL because they make a mess everytime:D

BWZN93

Spendless wrote:

Not used elastic bands on mine. They just remain rolled.

Another tip I've read but not put into practise:o is to put all the matching stuff inside the quilt cover, eg the pillowcases,valance etc, so when you are changing the bedding you know its all together inside one duvet cover.

I do that too, it saves having to search for an errant pillowcase etc - tidier in the long run! I also roll my towels and heap then pyramid style, small ones at the top and bigger ones at the bottom. Seems to stay reasonably tidy anyway!

Jo xx

BWZN93

ronankfan wrote:

Matching stuff inside the quilt cover - what a brilliant idea i am going to do that one

Matching duvet and sheet inside a pillowcase is easier!

Jo xx

fannyadams

Watching this post was quite a revalation.
This weekend, with DSx2 farmed out to grandma I managed to 'do' my house.
last job on Saturday evening/early hours of Sunday morning - the airing cupboards.
As I have a tumbling dryer I don't use either of them as proper airing cupboards. The one in the bathroom has all the toiletries in it (BOGOF shampoo etc) in the top and a glory hole in the bottom (coolbox, kitchen tiles, dust sheets, spair shower curtains, and window curtains).
The one on the landing with the immersion heater in it has all the towels and flannels (now in neat piles), spair duvets and pillows in those sucky bags.
DS#1 has all his bed linen in the drawers under the wardrobe. DS#2 has all his cot linen in a chest of drawers at the foot of his cot. All my bed linen is in an ottoman at the foot of my bed.
Feels good knowing that it's done, only another 6 weeks to go before I have to do it all again.
It was lovely to have a totally clean house if only for 1 hour (2pm to 3pm Sunday afternoon) then DSx2 came home and back to 'normal'.
This evening when I came home it looked like I hadn't bothered - which is why I don't most of the time.
Does anyone else just clean when the mood takes them or is it just me?
No '!!!!!!' is my middle name

nearlyrich

jw1096 wrote:

Matching duvet and sheet inside a pillowcase is easier!

Jo xx

Yes that's what I do, it makes it a smaller bundle that putting it in the quilt cover, I obviously didn't read it properly sorry:o

Pooky

My bedding is kept in my built in wardrobe - bedding sets and sheets are stored within the pillow cases for each set.

There's no tank in my airing cupboard - just a radiator, one the top shelf I have all the cool bags/boxes/large juice holders etc. (all the things I don't need regularly) along with a box containing all the christmas table clothes and posh clothes/napkins.

2nd shelf down is towels, folded in size order with another storage box with hand towels rolled up in to keep them together (I seem to have ended up with hundreds of hand towels - I think they breed in the dark)

The final shelf ( a half shelf) has rugs that I use in the kitchen (we never use the front door so all the mess comes straight into the kitchen - I keep loads of rag rugs down and change them daily), every day table clothes and a box of flannels.

I've got a couple of bags hanging from hooks too, one with all the hats/scarves/gloves for the family and the other with all the wellies in.....leaves all the floor space for the hoover/mop/bucket/broom.....

If I had somewhere else to put the hoover etc then I'd have space to hang things but then I'd forget about them. I turf if all out about every 2 months and resort - as like the rest of you - no other !!!!!! in this house can put it away properly!!

Lydia.42

I think ours is a little different to some of you guys (although still bursting at the seems).
We no longer have a water tank in ours, as it was removed when the combi- boiler was installed in the kitchen. Instead we have a shotgun cabinet inside ours :eek: - police thought it was a great place when they came to inspect (we do clay pigeon shooting).
I have a huge crate with a lid on (so i can stand the hoover on top) on the floor, which is full of BOGOF's.
The rest of the available space is made up of a shelf unit, and make-shift shelves near the top. We have a few towels (i banished the spares to a box in the loft, as OH used to use about 3 towels in one go, and leave them in a heap on the floor.....got fed up washing/drying, so hid all that we didn't need :rotfl: )
Any other free space is then jammed with toilet rolls - more BOGOFS (OH is worried about my toilet roll fetish ) and a few duvet sets.
Love the idea of putting pillow cases inside duvet BTW.
L

jellycat40

My airing cupboard is in a mess. The bedding is on a shelf so high that I have to throw the stuff up there and hope it sticks! lol

The next shelf down has towels on it. i did have it looking pretty with the towels all rolled up but I was the only one doing it and everyone else adopted the chuck it in style.

On the floor is the spare duvet, sleeping bags (waiting to go back to caravan), toilet rolls and anything that has fallen down from the shelves above.

May try the storing pillowcases inside duvet cover coz none of our match as I give up the search and just opt for what comes to hand.

Louise