Mission Organization: Week 11 - The Ironing

My ironing habits have changed since I became a retiree. When I worked full time I would spend 3 or 4 hours on the weekend catching up on my ironing for the week, then I would put it away until the next weekend came around. Since I have been retired, it seems that the ironing is never put away. My laundry room is very small, so I get out the ironing board and set it up in my bedroom, then do some ironing, but I don't finish. I no longer have the stamina to stand and iron for several hours, so after a little while I have to stop, but it's too much trouble to put everything away and get it out again just to iron a few more pieces later, so it seems the ironing board is constantly up. I don't like the ironing board up, I want it put away, but that's too much trouble and too much effort, so there you have it, a constant cycle of a no win situation.

 

 

I got really tired of looking at my ironing board in the middle of my bedroom, so I was very interested when I found how Amanda at A Crafty Fox cleverly solved the ironing board problem with a simple project to make a small portable ironing board that will fit on top of the dryer.

 

The first thing I needed was a board, and I had to ask my husband for help with that because I don't do saws. I measured the top of my dryer and decided I wanted a board 16 x 26 inches. For a dryer with a lint filter on top, the measurement would need to be adjusted.

 

After talking to the nice and knowledgeable lady at Hancock fabrics, I decided to use a slightly different kind of padding on my board. The bottom layer is a thermal batting by Pellon, the second layer is a cotton batting, the third layer is a heat resistant fabric (the silver kind like a traditional ironing board cover), and the top layer is just a cotton print. I bought 5/8 yard of each fabric. You can stop at the heat resistant layer if you want. The cotton print layer is just to make it more appealing to look at day in and day out. I chose a sock monkey print because they looked happy, and I thought they would be fun to see every day.

 

Pull all the layers tight around the board on all sides and secure with a staple gun.

 

The board fits right on top of the dryer, and it is so  handy to press an item as it comes out of the dryer.

The ironing board is banished from my bedroom, and I hope I never have to set it up in there again! With the help of the sock monkeys, maybe I can keep the ironing caught up one piece at a time.



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