How often do you wash your curtains ...

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and other soft furnishings if you have dogs? We have three dogs and no carpet or soft furnishings e.g. rugs or cushions. Also, no fabric settees. But we have curtains in most rooms. We air the whole house every day for an hour or two (yes, it does get freezing this time of year!) because we try to avoid having dog smell.

Anyone who visits says they can't smell our dogs (even very 'honest' friends) which I can believe because we are constantly cleaning and airing. But we only wash our curtains every 8 - 10 weeks. The dogs are not allowed in the bedrooms.

If you have dogs, how often do you wash your curtains?

i don’t have any curtain in the house, we’ve got shutters - they get wiped down weekly and washed properly about once every couple of months.
Sofa blankets are shoved in the washing machine monthly and cushion covers probably twice a year 😂 no pets though.

I've never heard of summer and winter curtains either, same all year here. We only have blinds downstairs, bedroom ones occasionally get washed or hoovered/steamed but not regularly.

Curtains Errr no 🙈 and I have a dog but he is not allowed on sofa and we have wooden floors downstairs and his bedding gets washed every week. Windows are opened to air rooms and to my knowledge my house doesn’t smell

I’ve never washed curtains and had dogs

We have really heavy curtains, they couldn’t be washed normally, I think they’ve gone to the dry cleaners twice. Our lighter ones never- they’re just not dirty!! Starting to worry now though…

i know someone who is very aware of aesthetics and she changes not only soft furnishings but also sofas etc plus re-paints twice a year according to if it's winter or summer. She has a smallish bungalow which makes it 'easier' I think and she puts her stuff into storage and swaps them around, but I belive makes a complete change every 5 years so sells her old stuff and starts again. At the moment in Sumer her aesthetic is grey, plink and silver and winter it is a deeper sort of ochre and gold. It's not to my taste at all, but I admire the commitment. That's her 'thing'. But she does use light curtain that I assume can be washed and swapped often. Alot of her stuff comes from Dunelm and she says it's fairly easy to change things around.

I don't do that.

Genuinely lost for words 😯

Curtains maybe once a year if I remember. Probably more like once every two years.
Things like cushion covers, the dogs bed (has a cover on it) and the throw the dogs lies much more often maybe every 4-6 weeks.

That’s commitment 😳

Never 😂

Jesus.

This is not the thread for me 😳

When we had a dog, never, we have changed the curtains more times than Ive washed them

We have a cat and where she jumps up on the sofa in the window, she drags past the voiles, which have little clumps of black fur on them. I only see them in certain light. So I make sure Im not looking that way in certain light

I wash cushion and seat covers sporadically, try to do it yearly for seat covers but blankets and throws are more often.

Its too much work and drying and the minute I would put it back on the cat will sick up on it anyway.

Everyone should open windows and air the house every day even for ten mins.

No dogs and wash my curtains twice a year in spring when it's warm enough to hang them on the line .and later in autumn. They are easy to wash.

Also we have a double curtain rail in 3 rooms, from Ikea, it means you can have voiles hanging on the inside and then curtains on the outside rail.

It also means the whole thing has to come down if you need to change anything.

I had to change the voiles in the bedroom recently and it involves getting the step ladder, OH shoving the rail along and dropping the finial behind a massive heavy wardrobe that we then struggled to move, then its all covered in dust because of course I dont hoover behind the wardrobe, then the rail is all wonky because he has managed to pull it wrong, pulling the front curtains off, the rubber stopper that holds the rail in place couldnt be put back in properly so its half hanging out

The whole thing fills me with rage and exhaustion.

No I wont be washing my curtains.

Plus someone with lots of time and money!

No pets.
We've washed our bedroom curtains once, because there was visible dirt on them (thanks kids).
They would be far too heavy to spin and rehang, plus having a massive damp thing hanging in the north facing bedroom would be dreadful for the air. And if they dried slowly they'd definitely smell. We line dried ours, and kept the pigeons off!

There are 7 other pairs of curtains in the house that have never been washed. A dust and hoover down is fine.

Maybe every 6 months or so. We have cheap ones from Argos and you can just chuck them in the wash and hang them up when wet and they dry fine.

i remember my mother doing this when i was a child in the 80's - spring summer were light floral ones and autumn winter were heavy velvet ones - she no longer does this now
I think now with improvements in house building, windows, heating etc

Wow she must have alot of time on her hands and alot of money 😱

You’re supposed to wash them?

I wash mine with the pet hair dissolver 2/3 times a year and have to regularly wipe them in between as the cat likes to sit on the window cills and the backs of the curtains get covered in cat hair.

I don’t. I just replace them when they start to look bad

Having just moved into a new house where I replaced curtain poles with tracks, had to send some curtains off to be altered, and then took down curtains to decorate, I pegged double duvet covers up on whatever rail was up at the time. You get a bit of a crack-den vibe, but they do the job.

@AfternoonTeaAddict in smaller houses changing things around helps to keep things fresh.

I go all out at Xmas to transform the house . It gives us a break form the normal house .

Airing your house for one or two hours every day seems a bit excessive, if not obsessive. Your heating bills must be huge.