For the past couple of months, I’ve done a lot of my laundry at my friend Jennifer’s house, and sometimes I took a shower there as well when my water pipe got frozen. My dear mother also received a few loads of dirty laundry, in which case I would get it back cleaned and ironed. The other day I even brought my laundry over to my Dungeons and Dragons club – every other week my friends and I meet for the whole afternoon or evening at one of their houses. ‘In the meantime, can I do a load of laundry at your place?’ ‘Sure, you can!’, they answered. Thanks honeys!
But I don’t want to rely on others all the time; that’s not what Tiny Living is about. It’s fine that I don’t want to have a washing machine, but that doesn’t mean others should pay the price. I hope and expect to have neighbors this year – four other Tiny Houses and their residents on this beautiful piece of rugged nature near the Gasfabriek in Alkmaar. And I hope we can create a communal space with a shared washing machine. Problem solved!
But for now, I need to come up with another solution. I passed by the gas station (Texaco in De Hoef in Alkmaar) on the way to the store and noticed that they have a laundromat. Doing laundry at the gas station, brilliant! Until now I hadn’t got around to actually using it. How long will it take? Do you need to stay with your laundry? How does it work? Do you bring your own detergent? Is it cash, card, or get a receipt like when going through the car wash? What if you leave for a moment and somebody else takes out your laundry? Those questions held me back. A bit lame, I know… Last Tuesday I decided to go for it and took my bag of laundry to the Texaco. Right, the machine for 8 kg of laundry seems sufficient. Ah, bio-degradable and hypo-allergenic detergent enclosed, great! Laundry in, 60 degrees Celsius, do I need a pre-wash? What is a pre-wash anyway? Oh well, let’s try it. Close the machine and start. The display said it would take about 34 minutes, but would that be the full wash program? I went to check inside. ‘Yes, that’s right, it takes about half an hour’, said the nice lady behind the counter. Wow, great! Now I even have to hurry with my grocery shopping.
When I returned from the shop there were four minutes left, and voila, all finished! I took my laundry home clean and fresh. I had the option to put it in the dryer, it’s supposed to take 15 minutes. But the weather was nice, so I could hang it outside. I don’t hang it inside to dry anymore, to avoid any mold issues. Drying your clothes outside leaves them fresher anyway. With a happy heart I hung my laundry to dry and a moment later I was enjoying my victory! I love it, this actually works! Just look at my laundry hanging there in the sun!
By the end of the afternoon everything was dry and I could take it back inside. With all that sun I had plenty of electricity and there’s also more than enough water in the tank, so I could take a nice shower as well. I did my groceries, cleaned my laundry and myself, I even cleaned the windows and made a healthy lunch. Man, I’m on a roll, I thought! Now I can crash on the couch with a good book, what a blessing!
Just look at Jack and Hella mooching for that goat’s cheese!
On a completely different note, can I ask you for a favor? Tiny House Nederland is in the VPRO Tegenlicht competition ‘Challengers and go-getters’. When we reach the top 5, we’re offered the opportunity to talk about Tiny Houses during the national Tegenlicht-meet up on April 15th at Pakhuis De Zwijger in Amsterdam. We don’t want to miss that opportunity of course! Will you please give us your vote? You can vote here:
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Thank you so much!
And on another different note: the workshop ‘Realise your own Tiny House’ has been such a big success that we’ve planned some new data and locations. Now you will be able to do this workshop in Haarlem, Groningen and Den Haag. In Haarlem we’ll be having the workshop in het Patronaat, which I – as a band-enthusiast – think is so cool! The locations in Groningen and Den Haag are not known yet, but I’ll do my best to find locations that are accessible by public transport. For more information and signing up: see on this page.
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