When I was a child, I was quite besotted with Beatrix Potter's Mrs Tiggy Winkle. She was so neat, clean and bustly. Her superior laundry skills ensured that all clothes were clean, mended, stain free and ironed. Something in the words in the book conjured up to me that smell of clean laundry, and the singe-y cotton smell that comes from a hot iron.
When I was 4 years old, I was given a child-sized ironing board, wooden iron and mini rotary clothes line for my Christmas present. Believe it or not, I was beside myself with joy. I would spend hours pegging out my dolls clothes and busily ironing them.
Frankly, I wouldn't have practised quite so hard if I'd realised how much washing I'd be doing in my more advanced years.
Mrs Tiggy Winkle and I have much in common (hopefully though, I won't be quite so short, stout and wrinkly as she in later life), in that I do find much satisfaction in successful stain removal. After the excitement on the silver cleaning post, I thought I'd share on the blog this easy stain removal method. I've told so many (amazed) mothers at school that had never known this, that it's obviously not common knowledge (although I'm betting that Deanne knows this one as well). This is the easiest way that you will ever remove red wine stains, tomato sauce based stains such as bolognase, strawberries and any other acid based fruit stain. Here is what to do:
1. Wash your clothes/ tablecloth as normal. Do not bother to treat the stain in any way. A cold wash is fine.
2. Hang your clothes on a clothes line, out on an airer, or even lay flat on an outdoor table if you don't have a line. Most importantly, put the areas with the stain in the sun. You need UV light directly on the stain for it to be removed, so don't try this on a cloudy day.
3. Leave it to dry. When you come back, the stain will be gone. If it's still there, just rewet the area under the tap and leave it again in the UV light to dry.
4. That's it. Easy. Your stain will be gone.
Here's the proof:
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| my 2 year old's singlet with bolognase stain |
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| 2 hours later, all gone |
Mr AV was amazed that I was able to get a large quantity of red wine out of his suit jacket the other day. All from the sun.
One thing that I am planning for our house renovation is a proper laundry. I have never had one. In Melbourne I had the ubiquitous laundry-in-the-cupboard scenario which is so common in the inner city at the three places we lived in. Prior to that, London gave me the laundry-in-the-kitchen. Currently I have a temporary laundry in the old (hideous) bathroom at the back of the house. It was jerry-rigged up by the builders for me, but is definitely no proper laundry. Images such as the following have provided me with a little inspiration:
Source: giannettiarchitects.com
Source: desiretoinspire.net
Source: lightlocations.com
I'm thinking that as I spend so much time in the laundry, I might use a wallpaper to liven the space up a bit. It's also going to double up as a "mud room". This term was probably never known in Australia prior to Pinterest, but I've been madly pinning mud rooms as inspiration. It will be a place for school blazers, bags and muddy football shoes to be removed into individual cubbies. Very organised.
I'm also liking the hanging Laundry Maids (not to be confused with an actual maid, which I'd also like very much), such as seen in the image above. Devol in the UK do a nice modern version, but I fear the shipping will be prohibitive. These ones are available in Australia, and I'll likely put in two to cope with the amount of laundry I do, and save on the dryer costs in Winter. As we will have such high ceilings, I should be able to dry king sized sheets on them without a problem.
To say that I'm itching for the renovation to start is an understatement. I can't wait to have the space from the new extension, as well as the storage and ease of use the new kitchen and laundry will provide. And with that, I'm going to leave you all to go and hang some washing out. Again.