Do you wash your curtains? If so how often?

Our heavy winter curtains (lined and interlined) are washed when I take them down in the Spring to replace with lightweight summer ones. The heavy ones are 'dry clean only' but they wash fine in the machine. Our summer curtains are handpainted silk (my own efforts) they also machine wash happily. It's nice to have a seasonal change for a few months.

Oh dear! I don't wash my curtains. Feel free to criticise me.

Mine cost so much years ago that I don't want to put them into the washing machine , the label says Dry-Clean only. But after getting a quote from Johnsons of £400 for 2 pairs I've bought a small steamer and use that.
They will never be pristine but , hey , life is short !

Mil used to tell me her mother washed them monthly. Probably another attempt to make me feel inferior or make me spend hours washing curtains. It didn’t work!! I’m with you Oopsadaisy and Juliet27.

I wash my front room ones once, maybe twice a year. I use fabric conditioner then hang them when they’re nearly dry, and they perfume the room nicely for a while. They’re a beggar to get up and down though - I always get a flashback to Father Ted’s Mrs Doyle when I’m tottering about on the windowsill.

I was inspired to wash my upstairs ones during lockdown 1 after several years of neglect. One pair shrank, so that went well.

Never, since they were hung 10 years ago. We don't smoke and have no wood burners or fires of any description. The ones that hang as a divider between the dining room and sitting room (to keep heat in) are dry cleaned every summer or so.

Wash them in Spring every year and put them away until Autumn when they’re ironed and put back up. I used to have summer curtains but now make do with vertical blinds

No. Domestic goddess is not me!

Blinds everywhere now but curtains used to be taken to dry cleaners every year. Very expensive and always came back with that terrible smell to them.

Lindylou57, I just gave my bedroom a ‘good bottoming’, so yes, people do still say that.Even washed the curtains, the water in the machine was quite grey?

Yes, once a year. I do one at a time in my washing machine, hang them o. The line, and bring them in and hang them back up while they are still slightly damp - that way the weight of them hanging prevents the need for ironing.

Once a year if lightweight cotton.Dry clean ones never.l took them once cost as much to get them cleaned they charge by the square metre, as to buy a new set!

Oopsadaisy1

Wash curtains???

What new kind of hell is this?

A woman after my own heart!

When I think of it!!! No more than annually definitely, and I wash 'dry clean only' ones too and they always come out ok.

As we have a wood burning stove I usually do them at least once a year. The dining room is not so much used, the curtains there were made for a house in the 80s and cost a fortune. I had them dry cleaned before we moved here, that was expensive. last autumn I decided to wash them one at a time. they came up beautifully. Probably wont wash those again for a couple of years.

We don't smoke and live in a clean semi rural area, so probably about once a year . All curtains, apart from the heavy ones in the sitting room, are light in colour and weight and are really just to soften the edges of the windows. I'm currently thinking about shutters as I dislike nets, but OH gets twitchy about lack of privacy with our almost floor to ceiling windows.

I have never had lined curtains, but I wash the otehrs as and when they need it, like everything else.

It IS a nightmare. But I have a set of ladders. I have even hemmed my current curtains while hanging to avoid taking them down, after they had dropped a bit (they are heavy) after the first six months or so.

I’m surprised that no-one mentions the main reason why I for one turn a blind eye to curtain washing or dry cleaning and that’s the absolute fag of taking them down and rehanging them, particularly the heavier lined ones in lounge and bedroom areas. We live in a semi rural area, not on a main road and don’t smoke. I might if I had any nets as they’d be a doddle - but anything else, I think not!

I wash curtains about once a year or every 18 months. Always take them straight out of the washing machine and hang up wet. Then draw them and most dry overnight without creases

I have two enormous windows (one is a bay) in our sitting room so curtains were a large outlay.

I bought readymade (dryclean only), lined curtains, stitching pairs together but have managed to wash them in a large drum commercial laundrette machine. They are a heavy cotton and did shrink about half an inch, so I was fortunate that shrinkage wasn't worse. I took a gamble. We don't smoke either but they (cream) do look overall grubby after a year or so.

I have been looking for 'washable' curtains for about a year, having redecorated but can't find anything I like. I would consider making them but now probably prefer readymade.

Incidentally, an advert has popped up in this thread, offering curtain material...£473 a metre anyone?

With our huge windows, we'd need a mortgage!

I've never washed my curtains but I did have my velvet ones dry cleaned once when we moved house. I occasionally vacuum clean them and they look ok to me. Again no kids, pets or smokers so they don't get dirty really.

Used to wash them with the spring clean. Then all the must have lining came into play so too heavy to handle and dry cleaning needed. Now with no dirty coal fires or wood burning stoves, no smokers, I only vacuum them twice a year but I only have them on sitting room windows. Blinds, roman blinds and wooden shutters on all other windows.

Giving my place a good'bottoming' as Mum used to say, this week. Does anyone say that anymore? So bought new nets, old ones were looking a bit sad, usually wash nets twice a year. Living room curtains say dry clean only and usually do that every couple of years. However after reading posts here might try gentle wash this year?. We dont smoke but I think it just freshens everything up.

No no no! I haven't washed any curtains since I was a young enthusiastic housewife 50 years ago. I bought new curtains when I moved to this flat 17 years ago and they all look perfect. If it ain't broke don't fix it.
My sister in South Africa put up new silk cream curtains and decided to wash them about 10 years later when I was visiting her, as I could take them down for her. Many of the folds at the top contained chrysalids of some sort of moth, and we never found out what as we took them out and put them in the garden.