When I bought my house three years ago, I somehow got this idea in my head that I needed to buy an ironing board and an iron. This wasn’t predicated by the fact that I had an ironing compulsion or even ironed casually at any time before, so I’m not sure where this came from.
All I knew was that if I needed to iron something, I wouldn’t have an iron to accomplish the task. Never mind the fact that I was still in need of a couch or a bed at the time, I felt that before I moved in I needed an iron to prevent a possibly wrinkly situation.
So I bought the stuff and stored it in my linen closet, just in case I accidentally purchased something in the future that had a propensity for wrinkling when thrown in a ball on the floor (usually a deal breaker when factored into the purchasing decision, but sometimes I am fooled.)
This was the situation earlier this week when a new pair of freshly washed pants was left in the dryer too long.
Wrinkles.
I was ticked that I had purchased something with such an obvious character flaw—cracking under pressure, but also a little bit excited that I was going to be able to use my ironing supplies for the first time.
Yes, the first time in three years.
So imagine my disappointment when I went to my closet and came out with this.
It might just look like an odd angle or that it’s low to the ground, but let me post my shoe next to my ironing board for a size comparison…
…and now with my pants, in all their wrinkled glory.
Is it supposed to be that small? I remembered it being much bigger. (Insert inappropriate joke here.)
While I’m tall, I am not an 8-foot tall amazon woman with ridiculously long legs, which means this ironing board is better suited for the clothes of Uncle June than for the clothes for yours truly.
But when you have wrinkles and OCD, you have to take action, so I spent a good 15 minutes basically lying on the floor in an attempt to iron a pair of pants on a board two feet too short and elevated approximately two inches from the floor.
I suppose I could have put it on a table, but that would have involved finding an empty space large enough to accommodate the small board. Other than my glass kitchen table, I was kind of screwed.
Not to mention the fact that I thought about that 10 minutes after I had already ironed the pants.
But it was upon completion of this task that I discovered the one truly awesome thing about this ironing board—the absolutely delightful ease at which it collapses. In fact, it collapsed while I was ironing and I didn’t even notice.
Maybe I’m just “special,” but have you ever succeeded in collapsing a regular ironing board without spewing profanity or getting a random body part stuck in one of the two metal pieces that are somehow more difficult to master than a Mensa test?
Whenever I use a normal ironing board—usually only when I travel for work—I always just leave the damn thing up and use it as a table. Somehow I don’t think this would work in my upstairs hallway. Plus, then I would have to dust around it.
The moral of the story is that I should avoid shopping to avoid fighting with inanimate objects so I can avoid blogging about diminutively-sized ironing boards and instead sip a cocktail while sitting in the sun listening to the ballgame on the radio.
Well, at least that’s what I got out of it.
Is there an appliance that you avoid using so that you don’t have to clean it/fight with it/put it away?
Abby Has Issues 
I love how the board collapsed and you didn’t even notice. That’s a well built ironing board, if you ask me. (That part really did make me LOL.)
Yes, my ironing board. I despise the thing and think I’ve used it twice in the past two years because I can’t ever get it to go down (insert inappropriate joke here) I once had it up for a few weeks until one of my friends came over and broke it down for me.
Oh I had one of those pee-wee ironing boards in college, which probably explains why I was always wearing wrinkled (and dirty) clothes. My husband totally had it out with our “big” ironing board and almost threw the thing out the window. I just sat and watched while he couldn’t figure out which lever to push to make it go down, screaming profanities. Ahhh domestic bliss….
hahahahaha.! Your photos portraying the shoe to ironing board ratio and then the ironing board to pants ratio made it for me! Then I remembered that I have an ironing board posing as a coffee table. I think there’s a special group for ironing boards who come out of the closet and pretend to be something else.
I try to avoid all extra work. So this includes the ironing board, the egg beater (I just use a fork), plates that arent dishwasher friendly. My mom used to use her ironing board to iron her hair, yes, with the iron she used for pants!
Ahahaha, love the photo of the pants on it! Solution: You should start only wearing shorts.
Also, how in the hell have you managed to go three years without ironing something? I NEED TO KNOW YOUR SECRET!! I spend about an hour a week ironing pants, blouses, sweaters, PAJAMAS…
1.) Until I get a tan, there will be no shorts in public. This is for the benefit of all involved-trust me.
2.) The only time I’ve had to iron something is when I’ve traveled, at which point I always have to iron something. There have been a couple times I’ve possibly looked a bit raggled, but other than that I’ve simply shopped well…or dress like a yoga hippie.
Gah! Ironing sucks. That’s probably why I can’t remember a time that I’ve ever ironed. I think I’ve made my husband do it for me in the past and before that my dad was the ironing master in the family. He’d prep all his shirts for the week on Sundays and during the week would take care of our stuff as needed.
That being said, I know that we own an ironing board and iron and will definitely pack it and move it despite the fact that we’ve abandoned ironing long ago. I’m lazy like that and prefer to dress like a yoga hippie whenever I have the chance 🙂
I need to indroduce you to a dear dear friend of mine: the steamer. LIFE. CHANGER. Granted I only use it once every 3 months but still, I loathe ironing and bonus points if you stand over it you simultaneously get a facial too. Winner.
I HATE ironing!! I’d almost rather wear wrinkled clothes..almost.
For me, sewing buttons has the same mystique. But, they unfortunately fall off constantly necessitating a variety of solutions such as safety pins, or putting the item in tieback of the closet and forgetting about it.
By the way, my travel steamer is my best friend.
The steamer sounds like a good plan, but I don’t think I would use it enough to necessitate a purchase (remember, I’m cheap and domestically disabled.) With that said, I can’t sew well either, as it involves sharp objects and focus.
I wonder if that ironing board was a part of a little girl’s play house! I’ve seriously never seen one that small. What a chore that must’ve been!
This is lame, but sometimes I can’t be bothered to use a cutting board so I cut things while holding them. One of these days I’m going to lose a finger.
Can you imagine the day when they used to iron everything – including sheets and boxers?! I try to avoid it as much as possible but my mother still has an ironing pile and sets aside large blocks of time to get it done. Really?!
Who irons the sheets? Really?
How about ironing jeans? You need that all important crease, right?
I would have to go with “ironing board on this one. When I use to work as a supervisor at a retail store, I had to iron my clothes. I did so on the floor because I apparently am not intelligent enough to figure out how to use an ironing board and the floor was just quicker and easier. Besides I could leave the iron sitting in the corner which just made it all easier to use the next time.
OMG, this is totally me! 😀 I bought an ironing board and and iron when I moved out of home, and I think I haven’t used it a single time. I like to say that I wear my clothes until it is without wrinkles. 😉
It’s so funny to me the things we think we need when we move into “grown up” situations. I have decided I won’t feel “adult” until I own a sideboard.
I totally bought an ironing board and iron when I moved in 2006 and Mr. Allison just used it for the first time last week. Same problem: its the size of a toddler.
LOL! I hate ironing too – so much so that I donate wrinkled clothes to the goodwill – I can’t……
Dishwasher. I don’t use it, ever. I had a traumatic experience my freshman year of college in which there was a link in the pipe going to dishwasher in the apartment next door, and the water all backed up into my apartment. Ever since then I’ve completely boycotted the dishwasher in any place I’ve lived, because I’m so paranoid it will do the same thing.
Yes! I have a dishwasher I’ve never used and I lived at my mom’s for 25 years and never used the dishwasher–no one did. We were the dishwashers.
Refusing to use the dishwasher actually a great way to increase storage space in a small kitchen, one of the items in my book of poorkid strategies. 😉
I’m new to your site and I have to comment. We bloggies connect about the most innocuous things, right? Treat yourself to an ironing board you can hide away in the wall, like a murphy bed. It’s less than $100 and a handy man can figure it out for you for hourly wage. I love my hideaway murphy ironing board! Have I expanded your mind to the possibilities?
The thing with me isn’t that I don’t have space, but rather that I avoid ironing whenever I can. It’s not that I don’t like it, but rather that it’s just something I never had to do because my stepdad had some weird ironing thing. When I moved I though, buying an ironing board (a mini one, as I found out a couple years later) felt necessary. I have no idea why. Oy!