My grandmother frequently laundered her curtains. Every couple of months she’s strip the windows, wash the curtains wipe the windows and rehang the curtains. As a kid, this mystified me. As a young adult, I considered it an old-fashioned housekeeping practice, one that was meant for women who stayed at home without a career. I grew up in a house that didn’t launder its curtains every three months. In a tidy house is curtain washing really necessary?

Yes. Yes, it is. When we moved last February, I washed the floor to ceiling (very high ceiling) sheers that I had custom made for the old house. They had 18 months of accumulated dust on them. They smelled bad. It took two washes to get them clean. I rehemmed them, put them in our new living room and forgot to wash them.

Something reminded me yesterday and I stripped the windows and washed the curtains. What a difference. Not only are the curtains cream-colored again (instead of a slightly dingy grey) but the living room smells fresher. My grandmother had the right idea, didn’t she?

These days, I balance a life of career and homemaking. My office is ten steps from the laundry (it’s true, I just checked) so it’s easy to keep up on washing. I take breaks from writing or image editing to clean windows or sweep the veranda. It’s a balance that I like. Now I just need to put “wash curtains” in my To Do list a little more often. Early March should be about right…