Hanging Jenny

There are things that central heating does better than infrared panels. One of these things is: drying wet fabrics. I'm sure infrared could do it too, but one of the reasons I am using infrared is that you don't need to leave it on for very long. Just having the heating on when you are brushing your teeth doesn't generate enough energy to dry a towel, for instance. To make things worse; my infrared panel in there bathroom is mounted on the wall, so that radiates horizontally, while the towel rack is below it. So basically, unless it is summer, or I take specific action, my towels don't dry. And if I come home from a run all dripping, and it is just too cold in the conservatory to help against that, my running gear doesn't dry either. I figured I needed to think of something!

Sometimes you see in things like bothies old-fashioned drying racks by the woodstove. I didn't really know what they were called, but when I mentioned them to one of my fellow course participants in Machynlleth, she had a name for them: hanging Jennies. And she said there was a website where you could buy them for a reasonable amount of money: Pulley Maid. So that might be another one of their monikers.

I figured that first of all, they would look right at home in my rather Victorian house. And secondly: I could hang one above the log burner in the landing. I don't want it in the living room; the living room is for being snug, and as beautiful as the pulley maids are, dripping running kit is not beautiful at all. And I don't use the other log burner a very often, but I can of course sometimes just light it for a particular occasion.

I was really wondering whether I should buy the classic version or a particular Welsh one. Wouldn't it be nice to have a actual Welsh pulley maid in the house? But I had no way of checking whether that was indeed a Welsh model. And in the end I decided to just go with a classic one, for the simple reason that it had wooden laths with an elongated cross section, while the Welsh one had round ones, and I find that less aesthetically pleasing. And after measuring the space I had near the log burner, but away from the ceiling lamp on the landing, I decided to order the version with 90 cm laths. 

A few days later it appeared. I opened the package and had a look. Assembly looked easy! And I started to assemble it. But then I noticed that these laths didn't looks 90 cm at all. I measure them; they were closer to 120 cm. Oh dear! I contacted the supplier about that.

I wanted to hang it anyway; I could just let the laths stick out a bit much on one side. Depending on what the supplier would say I could just later replace the laths, or just saw them to size or something. But then it turned out it sort of fit anyway! And longer laths means more space for hanging wet gear. So I decided to stick with it. I suggested to the supplier I just keep them and pay the extra few quid. They said, unsurprisingly, that I could just keep them for no extra charge. No problem!

After the initial trial hanging I took it all down again. I wanted to fix the laths to the cast iron hangers they rest in; no mechanism for keeping them in place is delivered. And I figured they would just keep falling out. Or at least stick out by arbitrary degrees. I didn't want that! And I just tied them down with some white string. I don't think that's very conspicuous. I also cut the cord to size, and tidied up the frayed ends. 

Then it was done! I needed to try it out. I started a little fire, and hung one of my small towels from the newly installed Hanging Jenny. And I think it all works! I have drying space now, and even if I am not drying anything, I have a very good-looking new appliance in my landing. Success!

The new setup with show towel

Close-up