Refreshing my ironing board

There were many things to replenish when our helper left. Took two trips to Ikea in one week - first to Alexander for the big stuff as I'm familiar with the place and it's easy to just pop my boxes from the trolley to the taxi; second to Jurong for the small stuff not available at Alexander.

In between the two trips, I bought an ironing board cover from NTUC. I knew that I would have to get a new iron because helper scratched burnt fibres off the ceramic soleplate with a knife!! That was some time ago but I didn't bother changing it since it was still working and I knew I wouldn't keep her long. But I didn't realise until after my second trip to Ikea that I had to get a new ironing board too! 

The army towel acted as a dust cover but also prevented me from seeing the truth about the board whenever I went into the yard

Some weird stained on the iron rest

The cover under the polka dot cover was disintegrating

I didn't remember why I had two ironing board covers, haha! Probably coz I thought one was not thick enough so I pulled the new one over instead of replacing the old scorched one.

A quick search showed that the cheapest ironing board is from Ikea. But it doesn't have a stand for the iron. The one with a stand is double the price. As a would-be SAHM then, I didn't want to spend that much. I also didn't feel like a third trip to Ikea after going there twice that week already...

So I checked the board again and turned to Google for advice. Finally, I decided not to buy a new board at all since the frame was quite sturdy and usable. Instead, I embarked on a messy project.

First, I stripped the board cover by cover. And I found black dust on the cover below. Turned out that the polka dot cover was also disintegrating. I should have expected that?!

As I removed the second cover, I wrapped up the black dust. But the wind started to work against me - some 80% of the lining underneath came off; the rest got stuck in the metal grooves and dropped off one by one with the wind!

Brought the naked metal frame into the bathroom to wash and all the rust started to come off. I had to hurry to wash the rusty water away in case it stained my bathroom tiles.

Then it was drying time. Came back some hours later to invert it and more rusty water came out :(

I had two ideas about the iron stand. Cloth + silicon pad, or aluminium foil? In the end, I couldn't bear to (a) do more sewing, and (b) sacrifice a silicon pad for the oven so I went for foil. I crushed the foil before opening it up to wrap so as to minimise tearing. Not very pretty but it works and is easy to clean and replace :)

After putting on the board cover, my ironing board is good as new, yeah!

I have been using it three times a week for the past month odd. The foil is keeping up well. A couple of connecting parts tend to peel off so I just press them back on. I reckon I would only need to replace this once or twice a year.