Ironing boards – Helping to make ironing less monotonous

Ironing clothes is a tedious but necessary household chore. However, it can be made easier by using a good quality ironing board and there is a huge selection on the market today.

An ironing board has a flat, padded surface on which clothes are placed to be ironed, usually with a decorative cover made of heat-resistant fabric. The pad usually has ventilation “holes”, which allow steam from the iron to penetrate the clothes and escape through the bottom.

A good ironing board also has extra features to make ironing easier. These include ‘sleeves’, which are about 2 feet long and 6 to 8 inches wide, attached to the board, for ironing sleeves and small garments.

Another important feature is the iron rest. It is usually at the end of the board and is made of heat resistant material. A good iron holder is large enough to hold the iron securely, without the risk of it falling over.

Types of ironing boards

There are three main types of ironing boards: portable, tabletop, and wall-mounted, each of which has its own advantages and disadvantages. To help select the best type of ironing board for your needs, you should consider how often it will be used, where it will be placed, how much space is available, and what price range you can afford.

Portable ironing boards are the most common in American homes. They have extendable legs, which fold for storage and unfold for use. They can be moved to any room in the house where you want to iron and then put away when you’re done.

An advantage of portable ironing boards is the ability to adjust the height. For example, you may prefer to sit down while ironing, rather than stand up. And it helps to be able to adjust the height of the board easily, if the smallest members of the household want to iron clothes. However, portable ironing boards have the disadvantage that they are inconvenient to set up and cumbersome to move.

The second type of ironing board, the tabletop, has short legs and is designed to sit on a table or counter. These ironing boards are easy to transport and install in a small space, making them popular with dorm students. But because they’re so small, it’s hard to fit larger garments correctly on the board, which can be annoying when ironing sleeves or anything that needs to fit around the end of the board.

The third type of ironing board is mounted on the wall and then folds out when ironing is needed. These wall mounted ironing boards are becoming more and more popular in modern homes. They have the advantage of saving space, which is a great advantage in a smaller house or apartment. They can even be installed in a dressing room or other confined space.

Even in larger homes, many people prefer wall-mounted ironing boards because they are so convenient. They only take a few seconds to fold up and put away, so they save a lot of time. They also eliminate the need to carry the ironing board and unfold the awkward folding legs. Wall-mounted ironing boards are strong and sturdy, and can be rotated at any angle to the most convenient position for ironing.

Some wall-mounted ironing boards are designed to be easily installed by a normal householder, without the need to call a tradesman, and therefore can save you money on installation costs.

The history of ironing boards

Although we take ironing boards for granted today, it’s worth remembering that 100 years ago they were a huge novelty and were just beginning to appear in stores in the United States.

For centuries, people used to iron their clothes on whatever flat surface was available. For example, the Vikings in the 9th century used flat pieces of whalebone, on which women ironed their clothes using hot rocks.

Later in Europe, it became common for people to iron their clothes on the kitchen table, or on a flat board propped up between two chairs. This practice spread to North America, and by the early 1800s, there was much advice in cleaning books about how big an ironing board should be, what it should be made of, and what kind of blanket or cloth it should be covered with. .

At about the same time, various ironing boards began to appear on the market, but there is some dispute as to who actually invented the ironing board.

In 1858, W. Vandenburg patented what he called the ironing board, and about three years later, Isaac Ronnie Bord of Georgetown, Delaware, obtained a patent for an adjustable horizontal flat surface for ironing underwear, garments, and bedding.

In 1892, an African-American woman, Sarah Boone, patented an ironing board that was the forerunner of the modern folding ironing board with a narrow, curved shape designed to make ironing shirts easier. (The term “iron,” of course, comes from the fact that the implements used to iron clothes were made of heavy cast iron, which was typically heated in the hearth or in a wood or coal stove.)

Improvements in ironing boards naturally followed the development of the iron, which became electrically powered and lighter. By 1940, manufacturers were producing all-metal folding ironing boards with tube legs, and the basic design of ironing boards has changed little since then.