Your airing cupboard....

Always use it as drying cupboard all 'smalls' and some bigger items its dries overnight . Seems a waste to use it as storage. Think using it to store towels, linen was hangover from when houses were damp but with modern central heated houses it isn't necessary.

Spare bed linen and towels a pair of curtains, cotton wool pads, night time nappies for when the DGD visits

How I would love to have an airing cupboard again. I had one in my first house years and years ago.

It was wonderful and I had piles of nappies in there, all getting nice and warm and fluffy. The cupboard had wooden slated shelves - lovely.

I have a combi boiler in a cupboard now and I do put clothes in there to dry on a plastic rail - but that first airing cupboard was great.

Our hot water tank came pre-lagged so doesn't give out heat but the cupboard seems to stay warm enough from the heat of the unlagged pipe round the back which we can't get to.

I use it as an airing cupboard! The top shelf has sleeping bags and spare duvets, but the main shelf takes all the laundry to finish off airing before being stowed away in drawers/wardrobes. It also has a hanging rails for shirts etc. I've inherited a bit of a 'thing' about damp clothes. There's only room on the floor for loo and sink cleaner (it being in the bathroom) as that's where the pump for the power shower sits.

I do periodically get a bit concerned about what's down the back of the tank. The last time it had a sweep out was eight years ago when the tank was replaced.

I have a generous airing cupboard which houses a hot water tank plus . . .
Just had a quick count, and it appears I have 41 bath towels and 74 hand towels! The majority have never been used. I couldn't resist the House of Fraser sales! They have now closed! Apart from that, like many of you, toiletries, loo rolls, kitchen rolls curtains, bed linen, (despite having more in under bed drawers) , pillows and duvets, tablecovers, forty odd year old baby clothes (mementoes) and various odds and ends such as wallpaper, travel kettle and sewing machine. I even have a pair of beautiful pure wool blankets (a 47 year old wedding present), hardly used, but hate to part with them. I'm going to have to live to a great age to use all of these (hoarded) possessions. We're considering moving to a smaller house so would have, (but hate) to part with some of this stash.

That's really good to hear that I'm not the only one*grannybuy*! Your stash out does mine several times over

Def needs tidying, again.

Love my combi boiler but as no water tank obviously no heat so loss of airing cupboard. When I had an airing cupboard I used to put all my bedding and towels and got my husband to put a rail so I could hang up shirts, etc.

Ive got games, toys (DD's) umbrella, shoes, a hammer as well as linen, towels, spare bathroom mat, dustsheets, and anything else that has no home elsewhere. I thought this was quite normal.

Mind when I open the door I have to watch my head as I may get knocked out by the falling of the big monopoly box or the hammer from the top shelf.

My Airing cupboard is fantastic, it stores all my towels, bed linen, curtains etc. they sit on the top two high rails. Which are set well back. Beneath the rails I have so much space I can stand in side, and get dressed on cold winter mornings if I am going out for the day and don't want to put the heating on. It also acts as a drying cupboard, washing that has been outside, but not quite dry, goes onto clothes hangers, which hook onto the rails and hang down into the space beneath, even bed linen can hang in here to finish drying...its the best airing cupboard I have ever had from all the houses I have lived in.

Next door, the other half of my semi, took out the airing cupboard as it is between the bathroom and separate toilet to make one big room. I couldn't even contemplate this as the cupboard is too useful. Mine is similar to most peoples, towels, bed linen, spare toiletries.

grannybuy your airing cupboard looks the same as mine - and the tank
I was going to say more tidy, but mine looks as if DH has had a tidying session while I was out the other day.
Once in a blue moon event.

ps I don't have a sewing machine in there, we have a hanging rail instead.
The sewing machine is under the stairs so I crack my head on the beam every time I get it out. Very handy.

pps the door is the same as well, perhaps we had the same builder.

We have a large airing cupboard which houses the lagged hot water tank - this gets covered in clothes, as well as the four shelves. Unfortunately my daughter who lives with us has an ironing phobia so all her laundry gets bunged in higgledy-piggledy. Every so often I go ape and haul everything out so she has to do something about it.

Basically everything that gets washed (and in my case ironed) goes into the cupboard for a while before being put away, but the top shelf is something of a towel and sheet graveyard and a repository of all those tablecloths that I never use.

I dread the time when we downsize as all of the modern houses I have visited have tiny or non-existent airing cupboards. How do people manage?

This thread struck a chord with me as I have just pulled everything out of my airing cupboard in order to sort it out for our upcoming move to a much smaller place.

Actually, airing cupboards are not usually found in Maltese houses due to having no boilers. We had a big cupboard built when we moved in to this house. It has slatted wooden shelves and a small greenhouse heater in the bottom which airs things very nicely in the winter months.

I was utterly horrified when I pulled everything out. Not only did I find towels and sheets which have not been used since we moved in, but I have no less than five single duvets with assorted sheets and covers, yet we haven't had a single bed in the house for ten years!

I have several bags for the charity shop and a couple more for the rubbish.

Bellasnana
I had to laugh at this, the airing cupboard in our previous house was cavernous; I needed a torch to venture into its depths.
When we moved here I was horrified at the gubbins that had collected behind the hot water tank. Most of it was my MIL's odd socks, tea towels and napkins (they lived there before us) however I did find a jewellery box that she swore I'd 'stolen' some 15 years earlier.
I certainly didn't put it there!
My current ac is now very tidy and I don't need to buy any cleaning products for about 6 months , let alone bed linen......pity 'cos I have my eye on some very pretty bed linen in House of Fraser........

loopylou I know what you mean about bed linen. I'm always tempted to buy new when I see pretty ones despite the fact that I could stock a small shop with what I already have

The trouble is that it won't wear out, will it?
In which case it'll probably outlast me [tchmm], but that won't stop me looking!

Here is a charity that provides household items to people who can't afford them. There's maybe something similar in your area you could donate usable items to, before splurging, guilt-free, on new goodies.

www.starterpacks.org.uk