How To Repair An Ironing Board

The lever/rod thingy that operates the ironing board came off (with no obvious way to stick it back on) and while I dislike ironing a WHOLE lot I still need an ironing board...so the question was do I figure out how to fix it, or chuck it and buy a new one. I have a hard time spending money on things I don't care AT ALL about, plus it's stuck in the open position and I don't know how I'm going to discard it, so fix it I did!

I could not figure it out on my own though, so I did the obvious thing when I need an answer - googled it. I found a site that was helpful and using her pictures as a guide I got the lever back in it's correct place. I'll try to describe what I did as easily as possible, check out her directions here if you need additional help.

Here I'm holding the lever/rod thing that fell off, it has a couple bends in it with a small hook/bend at the end. I'm standing in front of the part of the ironing board where it's supposed to be attached. You are looking at 2 of the table legs attached to a big metal plate that is covering where the rod needs to go. 

This is the underside of the above picture,  I'm looking up at the pointy end of the ironing board. See the 2 holes with the small metal rectangle between them on the bar that goes across? The lever needs to go in the channel on top of them underneath the big metal plate that the legs are attached to. The long dark rod is attached to the small rectangle (which is a metal plate on top of a spring) and that is what makes the ironing board open and close. You could take a screwdriver and push that little rectangle metal plate down to make the thing work if you'd rather...

My finger is covering the right hole from the picture above. I'm pointing where the lever is being inserted into the channel - under the big metal plate the legs are attached to and above the small metal plate attached to the long dark rod.

You can see where the lever is laying in the channel now. I had to push and wiggle to get the lever in the right spot, the little hook/bend on the end of the lever goes around the long thin rod (the dark rod going up from my finger) and sets on the small rectangle metal plate. When you push the lever to open and close the ironing board it's pushing the small rectangle metal plate and the spring down which enables the board to open and close.

Using pliers I closed the channel a little bit so it won't come out so easily in the future (hopefully). There, saved some money and I don't have to figure out how to get rid of the old one!











My "laundry room" is just a big closet so I've tried to organize to get the most use out of it. In addition to laundry stuff I have some linen closet things in there and a small tote with cleaning supplies. There are hooks on the insides of both doors to hang a drying rack and the ironing board.

Yes, I've also decorated with removable wall stickers because...well, because if I gotta do chores this at least makes me happy so why not!



I put up a short tension rod between 2 of the shelf brackets to store hangers on, and hung the dreaded iron on the wall to save a little space.