Design me an airing cuboard

[HexBramble]

This is all for my dream home of course - not a 'money is no object' home - an affordable but brilliantly designed one. I'm working my way through each room and the airing cupboard is my next thought.

I'd like to be able to stand in it and have shelving to the floor instead of the half cupboard I have now.

Any ideas?!

Hmm, I don't have an airing cupboard. I have never felt the lack of one. What purpose do you want your airing cupboard to serve? What will you keep in it?

Tinkly where do you store your towels and bedding?

Another who doesn't have one and doesn't see the point. I don't think many houses have them tbh. Our towels are stored in the bathroom and bedding is in divan bed drawers.

If you have slatted shelving in your airing cupboard then a top tip is to have the slats running from front to back rather than left to right iyswim. Then you don't crumple clothes / towels etc when putting in or taking out as they slide in / out so much better.

How about a free standing linen press instead? I want one but don't think I've got room

Hex one section of a long run of wardrobes in my daughter's room is dedicated to bedding and towels. There are six of us so, even with only a carefully edited couple of sets each, we do have a fair amout.

It means towels get properly dried so dont need as.much washing, ditto any laundry that didnt quite dry on the line. And a hot water tank provides resilience against boiler failure (immersion) and if power cuts expected.

No longer have an airing cupboard but I always found that sheets stored in one start to smell a bit fusty after a while

Well my stuff gets chucked in the tumble dryer if not dried properly on the line. I don't see why they should need to be stored in a special cupboard. Don't see the need for a separate hot water tank with immersion either.

Every house I've lived in has had an airing cupboard! I thought it was standard tbh.

I hate divan beds so wouldn't have storage there.

Also re towels, I have quite a lot! What's standard for a family of 5?! Gym towels, swimming kit, beach towels and bath towels really mount up so I'd have no chance of storing them in my actual bathroom.

Genuinely surprised that airing cupboards are a thing of the past

My house has two airing cupboards. Wouldn't be without them. They're in constant use. We don't have a clothes drier though.

I couldn't cope without my airing cupboard! (Well, without the 2 shelves above the water tank!). I'd want one I could at least walk into. Shelves on 3 sides. Maybe space for hangers.

My current cupboard is 'half' sized - in the sense that it doesn't have a bottom half (above a stairwell). It has a radiator at the back and 3 deep shelves. It's a poor design. Everything gets piled on top of each other so it's impossible to recycle items to the surface.

Ideally, I'd like a full length airing cupboard with shelving around the walls and enough space to stand and turn to stack.

My airing cupboard is hopeless because it contains a huge tank and some very shallow shelves in front of it. It's still better than no airing cupboard though. I've never had a house without one, even the house that had a combi boiler, so no hot water tank still had a slatted linen cupboard on the landing.

My ideal would be walk in with slatted shelves around the three sides and rails beneath and above the top and bottom shelves to hang laundry on, with maybe a pulley airer to the ceiling too. There would be separate hampers for white, light and dark laundry as well and a shute down to the utility room if the airing cupboard room didn't have room for the washing machine.

Two things that help massively with my own laundry situation are the square hot plate lids on the range for pressing and the galleried landing where I can throw super king sized sheets and duvet covers over to fold without any help. That wouldn't work in a cupboard though