How to Wash Your Curtains

I am a Stay At Home Mom who loves to make sure my families home is clean. I am definitely not Martha Stewart, but I do know a trick or too about making sure your house stays in tip top shape.

Curtains are essential to the beauty of your home. They ad style to your decor and give your house that little bit of privacy that you need. Curtains also tend to get dirty, dusty, and have a real knack for collecting animal hair. One thing people often overlook is that your curtains can be cleaned. You don't have to live with dirty window treatments.

Here are my tried and true tips for having perfectly clean window treatments:

~ Remove the curtains from the windows. It is helpful to do a quick measurement of the curtains to ensure that if you need to stretch them back into shape you know just how far to stretch them

~ Make sure that all hooks and weights are removed from the window treatments before washing

~ Instead of putting them straight in the washing machine take the curtains outside and shake off any hair or dust. You might even want to run them through your dryer on a no-heat seating to loosen and remove excess dust (this is a great tip for rugs, coats, etc.)

~Now you are ready to put them in the wash. You want to make sure that the curtains are the only thing you are washing. Mixing the curtains in with other fabrics can lead to disaster, and curtains become a heck of a lot heavier when wet.

~I find the gentle cycle to be my favorite for washing my curtains.

~While the curtains are in the wash now is the time to tackle the valances attached to the wall if you have any. You will want to either vacuum fabric valances or clean plastic and wood valances with soap and water.

~ Do not put them in the dryer or they will shrink and you will end up having to run out and buy a whole new set. I recommend drying them on a folding drying rack. You want to make sure that the curtain surfaces have room to dry without touching each other.

~When the curtains are 95% dry you want to iron them. You want to make sure that the fabric is not completely dry to avoid water marks.

~iron them vertically on the side that doesn't show. Now is also a good time to make sure that you are stretching the seams while ironing so that they do not pucker and make sure to stretch those curtains out to the correct size. You will have this info if you measured as stated in tip one.

~Your curtains are nice and fresh and ready to be hang with pride.

Now you can be proud of your window treatments. I recommend that you make cleaning the curtains part of your spring cleaning routine!