Linen, Laundry and Blanchisseries
Laundry is not a very sexy subject, but for all B n B/Gite owners it is an unescapable fact of daily or weekly life.
And while it is not my favourite function, we sure have it easy compared to my parents generation. As a small boy I recall my Mother lighting a fire under the huge copper-well it seemed huge to me-to heat the water and then taking a long pole to stir the sheets around in the boiling water.
Then all 10 sheets-there were 4 kids, so 4 different beds - had to be fed through a hand wringer. What a chore!!
When we had our small B n B in St Remy-de-Provence, Anne use to wash and iron all the bedroom and bathroom linen. I tried to help her-honest-but she is very fussy about that sort of thing-compulsive, obsessive you might say!
However once we graduted to our larger property located here in Burgundy we wised up. www.maisonchaudenay.com
We still wash/dry all the bathroom linen ourselves, but all the bed linen is sent out to a blanchisserie. Other property owners will be interested in these prices-we couldn’t do it cheaper ourselves.
Double/queen sheets tops and bottoms cost us 0.909 centimes each. Single sheets run at 0.843 centimes. Pillow slips are 0.421 centimes each.(all HT) The laundry is collected and returned to our front door so all in all we consider it a pretty good service.
In terms of purchasing, most bathroom linen we buy at the French retail chain, Eurodif. Their quality is very good and prices very reasonable. They usually have good quantities of stock too, so replacements for sets of linen can be bought.
For bed linen, while we have bought some in France we tend to buy in Switzerland where again the quality and price are in good balance. Normally from Globus, a Swiss department store chain.
E.B. White had life sorted: “We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry.”
Cheers, Bruce.
October 8th, 2009 at 10:53 am
Hi, Bruce.
Interesting story again. The only thing I find hard to believe are the prices quoted. 0.909 centimes (assuming you substitue Eurocents for centimes) equals not even 1 Eurocent. Are you sure the prices should not be 0.909 Euro, or 90.9 (Euro)cents?
October 8th, 2009 at 11:09 am
Hi Cees, you are quite correct 0.909 euro i.e. 90.9 cents - no profit for la blanchesserie the way I showed it!!